Bonds of Darkness

by Joyce Ellen Armond

  Sander's eyes popped open wide. His mouth dropped open and his nostrils flared.

  Paul screamed. He shuddered as if he were about to break apart. Sander broke free as Paul fell to his knees. He grabbed Kate and threw her against the wall.

  Kate hit with a thud. Stars exploded in her head.

  Paul screamed again, going to all fours. Blood dripped from his nose.

  "Not yet!” screamed Sander. He pulled Paul to his feet. “Not yet!” He dragged him toward the basement door.

  Kate shook her head to clear it. The symbols on her body pulsed urgently. Somehow she knew she couldn't let Sander shut that door and leave her behind, or she would fail. She kicked off against the wall. Sander saw her coming and pulled the door open. He pushed Paul through and followed, pulling the door shut behind him. Kate got her foot in it before he could. Her instep exploded with pain. The symbols on her skin exploded with blue-white power. Kate felt the force jam into the narrow space.

  Kate wrenched the door open all the way. Sander was already on the landing, making the turn, heading down. Paul stumbled along behind, the demands of the curse driving him. He threw one last lingering look at Kate.

  Kate saw hope in his eyes. An answering flare ignited in her heart, and the force from the symbols drove her further down the stairs. She made it down four steps when the air froze into something cold and solid against her.

  A protective ward. Sander had placed them. She had to break the defensive magic before she could reach Paul. The marks on her skin throbbed like miniature hearts, pumping a sheen of sparkling power over her. She found her own heart, opened it. She focused on Paul, on her love. She sent her mind back to his first kiss, the raw, shocking force of his lips on hers. Sensation lifted from her skin like steam, mixing with the sparks from the symbols on her skin. She felt the flow of love move through her, thick and hot as blood, and took a step into the coldness. For an instant it pushed back, iron-rigid and ice-cold. The power she'd raised flared. The ward softened. Kate took another step and felt the cold close over her, sucking her inside.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Paul saw Kate push her way through the thick magic of Sander's wards, glowing with stolen power, and, for the first time in a century, he didn't feel utterly, hopelessly alone. He couldn't stop his legs from moving him down into the basement, couldn't make his arms reach up and throttle Sander. The curse controlled him now, the mindless magic hungry to complete the yearly cycle. But for once, he wasn't completely alone.

  A cramp twisted him, but his curse-ridden muscles refused to react to the pain. In all the previous years, Sander had had him safely bound by now. Maybe there was a chance. The hope hurt almost as badly as the coming change.

  His body followed Sander off the final step and onto the smooth black cement floor. Candles were already lit, marking off the wide circle that protected Sander and the smaller circles meant to control him and the demon. In the center of his circle, the hated cuffs dangled from a chain in the ceiling. On the floor in the demon's circle, Sander had inscribed a pentagram in red powder.

  Paul's curse-ridden body walked without coercion into his circle. His arms lifted complacently. Sander buckled the cuffs, one on each of his wrists. Paul demanded his legs kick out, take Sander in the gut. But his muscles weren't his to command. They wouldn't be again until the demon left his body.

  Sander pulled a knife from his belt, the long-handled ritual blade Paul had seen so many times. A Kris blade. Damascus steel.

  "I'll have you forever.” Sander put the blade against the neck of Paul's t-shirt. With the other hand, he reached under the shirt, running his hand up Paul's stomach and chest, pushing the cotton out until it stretched vulnerably. Then he wrenched the blade down through the fabric. It split with a tearing scream.

  Sander ripped away the remains of the shirt. Pain ripped at Paul. His muscles crawled under his skin, trying to escape it. What if Sander didn't get the spell ready in time? What would happen to him? What would happen to all of them?

  Paul looked towards the stairway. No sign of Kate. He hoped whatever magic Laurie had blessed Kate with could get her through the wards.

  Sander raised his index finger to his lips, slid it into his mouth to suck it.

  Paul clenched his jaw. How he hated this part. More than anything else, he hated this part.

  Sander put his wet finger in the hollow of Paul's throat and lightly stroked down. The tickling feeling skittered along Paul's nerves, and he felt a heat rise where Sander's finger went. He looked down, saw his flesh redden and pucker in a line following Sander's touch.

  The curse held him steady. He couldn't even jerk against the cuffs at his wrists. He stood, stretched taut, unable even to squirm, as Sander used his finger to draw the signs of magic on his skin.

  "She's clever, your Kate.” Sander ground the words out between clenched teeth. “I never would have guessed."

  The tickling finger went around his navel in concentric orbits, then flew off along the line of his lowest rib. Sander circled behind him, drawing on the small of his back. Paul felt his skin burn.

  "She loves me,” Paul whispered. “I love her."

  "You don't know what love is.” Sander's touch traced his spine in overlapping figure eights. “You don't know what it is to hold a person's soul in your hands, to see their heart beating through their skin. You don't know what it is to be able to take everything."

  "Neither do you."

  Back around his other lowest rib, Sander's finger skated up over his heart, drawing an intricate series of arabesques. The hair on his chest stood on end from the sensation of the hated flesh on his. The abrasions swelled red, covering the skin above his heart.

  "I will."

  Paul threw a desperate glance towards the stairs. They were dark. No Kate.

  "She won't make it through the wards."

  "She will.” She had to.

  The demon shrieked, long and high. Paul felt his ribs crack and tasted blood.

  * * * *

  The darkness took on a silver cast, as if Kate had stepped inside a frozen moonbeam. She exhaled, and her breath swirled into shimmering arabesques.

  Very, very weird. The hair on the back of her neck stiffened, and, in response, the symbols on her skin faded. She heard Laurie's words. There are two forces in the world, Kate: fear and love. Sander will use fear. You use love.

  Kate closed her eyes and let her heart expand, setting free like doves in the darkness thoughts of everyone she had ever loved, and who had ever loved her. Her mind chanted the names like a mantra: Paul, Vanessa, Gwen, Mom, Dad...

  Suddenly her eyelids snapped open. She couldn't stop them. Her breaths came faster and faster, building a wall of lacy frost in the air before her.

  "You quit your job?"

  Her silvery exhalations etched her parents’ faces on the field of darkness.

  "Oh, Katie, how could you?"

  "People need you, they depend on you!"

  "You let that poor girl die, while you were out making love!"

  Shame scalded Kate. The electric pulse of the symbols on her body dimmed. It was exactly what she'd feared her parents would say, if they had been alive.

  "Katie, you know the right thing to do.” Her mother's voice was gentle.

  Her father's voice was stern. “You turn right around and march back to your office, and you forget about this man. A life without service is not worth living."

  Kate felt tears fall down her cheeks, hot tears against the pressing cold. Her heels hit the stair, and her balance wavered. She threw her arms out to catch herself. Her hands burst through the icy likenesses of her mother and father.

  Paul needs me. The thought lifted out of her heart. Paul is depending on me. Gwen's voice and Vanessa's voice rose together like an opera duet: Don't you see that you are entitled to take a little something for yourself, too? You deserve it, honey!

  Kate felt the flare of power from the symbols again. The cold rippled and cracked. She took another
step down, two. She reached the landing before the cold closed over her again.

  * * * *

  It was always the worst, this night. Because of the cuffs Paul couldn't curl protectively around the pain in his core, and the demon refused to dig its way out. So his body expelled it, pushing, tearing. He felt muscles give way in his chest, choked on the sudden burst of blood in his throat. It was a birth with no joy. His skin stretched, stretched, thinned, and then suddenly ripped. The black shape of the demon poured out with a gush of blood. Before it was completely out of him, it lunged, making for the sky it knew was above.

  Sander shouted harsh words. The candles in the demon's circle flared. Paul felt the air suck towards the circle, snatching breath from his lungs. The demon was caught in the sudden gust, ripped the rest of the way from Paul's body and trapped in the circle. Immediately, the pentagram ignited. Red flame danced on the black cement floor.

  Paul felt his bones reknit, his skin grow back together—a new, itching, burning kind of pain. The sour-penny taste of blood in his mouth remained.

  The demon coalesced into its vaguely human form. Lightning flickered wildly just under its skin, silver light in opposition to the hot red flames licking around its thighs. Its glittering eyes went immediately to the stairs, and it keened, high and shrill.

  "She'll make it,” Paul said, the first time he had ever spoken to it when they were separate and face to face.

  The metallic eyes swam through the black flesh and fixed on his face. Paul shared its emotions even from a distance: panic and desperate hope.

  "She'll make it,” Paul said again. “I'm sorry I was such a jerk. If I hadn't fought her, she might be here already.” For the first time, he felt kinship with the thing. He didn't hate it. It didn't want to destroy him. It only wanted to be free, just like he did. “She'll make it. She loves us."

  The black flesh of the demon lit suddenly from within. Its form strengthened, became more human.

  "She will not make it.” Sander turned from them both, and strode to the edges of the larger circle of candles.

  The demon keened after him, high and shrill. Paul felt tears fall onto his cheeks. She'll make it. She must.

  He filled his healed lungs with air, and shouted, “Kate!"

  * * * *

  This time, the cold sunk its teeth into her. The symbols flared once and almost went out. Kate gave a sudden squeal, alone in the ghostly glow.

  Vern's voice rapped against her brain. What makes you think you can do this? You haven't been trained, you don't know what you're doing. This is just a pathetic attempt to be a big hero, which you can never be.

  God, she disliked that little nerd. His words rang sour inside her. But she just didn't believe him. The symbols glowed a little stronger.

  The silver tangles of her breath smoothed into a mirror. In the frosted moonlight, she saw her own face staring back at her. She saw the frizzled mess of her hair, the smudges of sleeplessness under her eyes.

  "This is just a pathetic attempt to be a big hero, which you can never be."

  It was her own voice, and it made her heart skip and falter.

  "You can never live up to what Mom and Dad were. They died because they couldn't live with the disappointment that you are."

  Kate stared into her reflection. Was she always this ugly? Her complexion was blotched with sweat, her forehead and chin gleaming with an oily residue of fear. Her eyes were watery, her lashes pale and thin. A healed acne scar stained her cheek where everyone else had a beauty mark. I'm hideous. How can he love me?

  "He doesn't.” Her reflection smirked. “Don't be a fool. You don't even have a favorite flavor of ice cream. You get him out of this curse, you'll be lucky if he stops to thank you before he goes running off to live his life."

  She knew it was true. She'd always known, a nagging little shadow she couldn't get rid of.

  "He seduced the flower of high society, gorgeous, gracious women in elegant gowns. He's been in the best beds in history. How can you even face him, after he spent a night in yours?"

  It was great. He loves me.

  "Yeah, yeah, you were the first bit of ass he had in a hundred years. He wouldn't have cared if you were hairy and drooping, in fact he didn't care, did he, as long as he got in your pants?"

  Kate closed her eyes on her reflection, but the internal vision was worse. She saw herself under Paul, thrashing gracelessly. She saw Paul, dark eyes wild and beautiful, his body arched, strong and sure, over her clumsy struggling, her barred teeth and her matted hair.

  "He can't love you."

  She opened her eyes and saw not the reflection but herself: blotched face, red nose, streaming eyes. She felt the power of the symbols on her skin flicker, and begin to go out.

  "Kate!"

  Paul's voice. It penetrated the cold prison, echoed in the cold like light through a prism.

  He needs me.

  The sigils on her skin pulsed to hot, powerful life.

  He loves me.

  The silver mirror melted away. The cold melted away. Kate pushed, and it yielded like mush. She turned the corner, went down the stairs, first one, then another, faster, faster, faster. Heat and love swelled from her heart out, steaming away the clinging cold tendrils of Sander's magic. Her feet left the last step and hit the hard cement basement floor.

  I did it. I'm in.

  Kate faced three circles of candles. One started just a few steps away and ringed two smaller circles in the center of it. In one of those circles Paul hung from his wrists, manacled by cuffs anchored in the ceiling. In the other stood the demon, imprisoned by red flames.

  Sander Wald stopped halfway through the large circle, staring at her, fury and fear in his eyes.

  For a moment no one moved. Kate stared at Sander, and he back at her. Paul hung motionless from his cuffs. Even the demon's liquid form froze.

  "I made it through your wards,” Kate said. She needed to say it, so she could believe it herself. “I made it through."

  She stepped up to the ring of candles.

  Paul strained to the edge of his tether. “Kate, he has a knife!"

  Sander's mouth curled up, and he held it up to show it to her.

  Would he spill blood in his magic circle and risk unleashing wild magic? He needed to keep control.

  The demon shrieked, high and piercing.

  Sander winced at the sound. Kate saw his eyes glaze over with a hate so deep that, for a moment, she forgot to breathe. Then Sander whirled on his heel and strode back to Paul and the demon.

  Kate lifted her right hand. She felt the symbol drawn on her palm pulse as she touched the invisible magic encasing Sander's circle. She pushed against the magic until it wouldn't give anymore, then she jerked her hand along the invisible surface, counterclockwise. She felt the fabric of the spell tear just enough for her to slide inside. She felt the circle close up behind her. She was trapped until, one way or another, it ended.

  Kate's lungs labored to draw in enough air. It was unnaturally thick, and it tasted like stale ashes. Cold fear prickled against her, probing, trying to find a way in. She looked at Paul. He stared at her, his eyes willing her forward. He jerked at the cuffs on his wrists, making his body sway.

  Sander raised the knife. For a moment, Kate feared he would throw it, bury it in Paul's chest. But instead he sketched shapes into the heavy air. Kate saw the trail left by the knifepoint, a glowing tracery. The symbols drawn on her body tingled in a sympathetic response to the spell.

  He was laying down the magic to rebind Paul and the demon. Casting around in her mind for some clue as to how to stop him, Kate ordered her legs to move. Muscles strained against the thick air, but she moved. One step, another. Another. The candles marking the greater circle flickered, as her steps disturbed the heavy air and set the flames to dancing.

  Another step, another. She plowed through the mush of magic, straining like a sled dog. But she made it to the circle imprisoning Paul.

  Sander increased the tempo of
the knife slicing through the air.

  Kate put her hand out, felt for the circle's magic. She found it whirling fast, right above the line of candles. She traced it up and down, an invisible whirlwind stretching as far as she could reach. She put both hands against the pulsing force, and began moving against the clock. She didn't know what, if anything, she would accomplish, beyond freeing Paul. But that was enough.

  Halfway around the circle, she felt its magic tear loose and float away, a spider web caught on the wind. The candles marking the circle hissed and went out. She stepped over the smoking stubs of wax. They flared to life again with flames reaching unnaturally high.

  Sander lunged after her, but was stopped against an invisible wall. His mouth formed curses, but Kate couldn't hear them.

  "Kate.” Paul's urgent tone caught her attention. “The marks. They're part of the spell."

  Kate stared at the pattern of welts on Paul's flesh. Vern hadn't said anything about this. Tentatively, she put her hand against Paul's stomach. The magical sign on her palm flared. She smoothed her palm across his skin, and the red marks healed. Kate looked up, saw Paul watching with wide eyes. She went up on tiptoe, reaching around his shoulders, stroking down his spine, letting the symbols on her palms guide her. She leaned in and put her lips to the intricate welts Sander had inscribed over Paul's heart.

  "I love you,” she whispered against his skin.

  When she drew back, the marks were gone, all gone. A vibrant sense of wonder filled her, warming her and making the symbols on her skin glow misty and pink-gold. She lifted her eyes to Paul's face. He was looking past her left shoulder.

  "Watch out!"

  He kicked with his feet, slicing her legs out from under her. She fell. Sander Wald tangled on her prone body as he lunged, knife in hand. Kate scrambled back. Sander caught himself and whirled. Kate got her feet under her and dove, but not fast enough. She saw Sander coming at her, saw the knife point. She felt a hot slash along her arm.

  "Kate!"