Alight: The Peril

by K. C. Neal

  Can I do anything? You seem like you’re running out of steam.

  He opened his eyes and gave me a half smile, half smirk. Yeah, I can think of a few things you could do for me.

  I snickered. You know that’s not what I meant.

  He reached over and pulled me to him, wrapping his arms around me. For once, he seemed to need my body heat instead of the other way around. My head on his shoulder, I breathed him in, soap mixed with a hint of perspiration. The anxiety that spurred me to gnaw my nails all morning seemed to slide away. I closed my eyes, suddenly hyperaware of his nearness, his breath on my hair, his hands pressed into my back. My heart skittered for a few beats.

  I shifted, trying to ignore the flutter in my stomach. Seriously, what does it take to recharge? Just time?

  Mmm . . . time helps. Mr. S is trying to teach me how to draw energy from other sources so I can recover faster.

  From other people? Or from, like, the sun or something?

  Mason snickered. The sun? Like photosynthesis? I wish. No, it’s from people. He said I should do it only when I absolutely have to because it weakens them temporarily. He’s also teaching me a kind of meditation technique that helps the recovery process speed up. It’s hard, though. I’ll have to practice it a lot before I’ll be able to rely on it.

  So what happens when you use another person’s energy?

  I don’t know exactly how it works. I kind of reach into the person’s body with my mind, searching for the center of heat. For most people, that’s near the heart, apparently. Then I siphon some off. I have to be careful, though. If I take too much, the person could pass out. If I take it all, they’d die.

  Die? Whoa.

  Yeah.

  I listened to the steady rhythm of his heart for a few seconds. So you wanna try it? On me? Just a little, to practice. Don’t suck out my soul or anything.

  His lips parted and his breath came a little faster. I don’t know . . . I’ve only done it a couple of times.

  Oh, come on. I trust you.

  Well . . . okay.

  What do I do? Anything?

  Nope. Well, maybe just try not to distract me.

  Okay.

  I lay as still as I could, my heart tapping away in my chest. A tingle of anticipation rippled through me from head to foot. Then, a tiny point of heat traced a darting path to the center of my chest, like a honeybee zeroing in on a flower. The point expanded to engulf my heart, and I drew a sharp breath. Warmth burst through me, swelling for several seconds, and then it was gone, leaving me with the absence of heat, as if the sun had set after a long day of sunbathing.

  I panted a little. That . . . was not subtle. I think people are gonna notice if you do that to them.

  Mason laughed softly, a deep rumble in his chest. His arms were suddenly warm around me. So you felt it, huh?

  Um, yeah.

  I don’t think it’s usually like that. I tried it with Mr. S, and he, uh, didn’t react the way you just did.

  A blush spread up my neck. I tried to play off my self-consciousness with a short laugh. I sure hope it wasn’t like that for him. That’d be . . . awkward.

  He pressed his lips to my temple. You liked it, I take it?

  The heat in my cheeks intensified. I didn’t hate it.

  I heard rustling outside the door, and then a soft tap that made me jump. “You guys? Aunt Dorothy wants to go back to the cove now,” Ang’s voice came softly through the door.

  I sat up, pulling away from Mason.

  Be right out, I said to Ang through our link.

  “Oh,” she said, and then through our link, Okay. I heard her retreat back down the hallway.

  I pushed myself off the sofa and slipped on my shoes, avoiding Mason’s gaze.

  Thanks. I feel a lot better, he said.

  Um, yeah, you’re welcome.

  It was all I could do to calmly walk out of the den. My heart was flipping around in my chest like a fish on land. I couldn’t shake the sensation of Mason’s presence darting around in my chest. Not to mention the strange draining thrill when he took some of my energy, or whatever it was he did. I pressed both hands to my stomach.

  When I reached the kitchen, I grabbed a sponge from the sink and started wiping down the already clean counters while Aunt Dorothy pulled on her straw sun hat. Mason’s voice was absent from my mind, but I knew he watched me.

  Back at the cove, I used the influences to coax a family and a group of high school kids to vacate the area. We all gathered at one of the picnic tables, and Aunt Dorothy stood at one end as if preparing to lecture her class. Mr. Sykes sat a few feet away at a table in the shade. I picked at the peeling red paint on the table and made a little hill of paint chips. A vague pulsing vibration swelled in my head. Maybe I’d been out in the sun too long. Should have grabbed some Advil when we were at the house.

  “Now, it’s time to see how the four of you work together,” said Aunt Dorothy. I swear there was a bit of an evil glint in her eye, and my stomach seemed to drop a couple of inches as nervous adrenaline streamed through me. I sat up straighter and abandoned my paint chip pile. “You’re going to try a drill.”

  She pulled a bottle from the pocket of her khaki pants and set it on the table. It was a miniature version of the pyxis bottles, and looked just like the bottle she’d used for the syndesmo rites. This one contained liquid so green it was practically fluorescent.

  Wonder if this one’s going to taste like ass, too? Mason said, and I covered my mouth to stifle a laugh. I shivered a little. That other miniature bottle held something that had been powerful enough to help me and Mason create a psychic bond. What would this one do?

  From her other pocket, Aunt Dorothy produced a book of matches and an oblong, knotted piece of wood with intricate cracks forming a maze over its surface. The pulsing vibration I’d noticed when we gathered around the picnic table intensified. It was coming from the chunk of wood. My vision blurred and all sound faded away as every cell in my body seemed to attune to the vibration. Just as quickly as it had come over me, the sensation disappeared. I looked at the others to see if they noticed the vibration, too. But Ang, Sophie, and Mason were still watching Aunt Dorothy with rapt attention. She was unscrewing the dropper cap on the bottle of green liquid.

  Angeline opened her mouth, and Aunt Dorothy let a drop of the green liquid fall onto her tongue. She did the same for Mason and Sophie, and then it was my turn. A sweet, tart flavor spread over my taste buds, like a hundred green Jolly Ranchers distilled down to one drop.

  Ang stared out across the lake, looking kind of spaced out. Ooohhhh, she crooned through our link, just as everything began to shimmer like a desert mirage. Colors intensified and edges softened, as if I’d stepped into an impressionist’s version of the cove. Then it all slid back into normal focus.

  Aunt Dorothy put the bottle back in her pocket and picked up the matchbook. She lit a match and held it to the underside of the grooved piece of wood. It didn’t ignite, but faint tendrils of smoke began wafting out through the cracks in the top. She shook the match with one hand until it extinguished, then motioned for us to follow her back to the meadow. I inhaled the aroma of the smoke—a mix of eucalyptus, almond, and something musty I couldn’t quite place—and stared wide-eyed at the flowers, from which colors seemed to burst, so vivid they nearly trembled.

  “Angeline and Sophie, back to your places,” Aunt Dorothy directed. “Mason and Corinne, over there.” She pointed to a spot at the back of the meadow, near the trees, where Mason and Mr. Sykes had been earlier.

  What do you think is going on? I asked Mason. I was picking my way carefully, trying not to crush any blooms.

  I’m not sure, but . . . He stopped, and I looked up and followed his gaze.

  In the forest, under cover of the trees, the dirty gray fog from our nightmares billowed toward us.

  || 11 ||

  MY HEART SKITTERED WITH PANIC. There was something worse, much more horrifying about this fog than the one from my
dreams. This one seemed to pulse, even groan faintly as it wrapped around tree trunks and penetrated low brush. It moved like a living thing, and malice emanated from it in dark waves. Just as I had feared the fog leaching into my body in my nightmares, now the thought of those malevolent vibrations permeating my mind, poisoning my thoughts, made me want to scream for help.

  Some part of my mind recognized that this was a drill, that what I saw probably wasn’t real, but the memory of terror chilled me to my core. I held my breath and squeezed my eyes shut against it. What was I supposed to do? Aunt Dorothy hadn’t given us any warning or direction. I knew I must react, do something, but what?

  A wave of heat burst across my bare arm like a blast of hot air from an oven. Mason was gathering his strength beside me. Even in full daylight, his skin glowed faint white. He raised his hand, and a streak of light shot into the dark cloud before us. An electric crackle zapped through the air as the light dissolved the leading edge of the fog. The resulting smell of ozone hit me in the face and jarred me loose of the grip of fear.

  I stepped toward the forest and the dirty billowing cloud. My breath came fast and shallow, edging toward hyperventilation. I had to stay focused and stand my ground. The fog continued to spread through the trees, and Mason let loose zap after zap of crackling light.

  Corinne, you have to help me. I can’t hold it by myself.

  I licked my dry lips. Against every instinct that was telling me to run, get the heck out of there before this horrible thing could seep into me, I reached out to it with my mind. I sensed a core back there somewhere, a source from which the fog emerged. Just as Mason had probed for the energetic point near my heart, I searched for the source of the thing in front of me.

  The closer I got to the source, the more I wanted to recoil. It was like reaching into a putrid, rotting corpse with my bare hand, searching for the black, swollen heart inside. My skin crawled with goose bumps. The thought of accidentally inhaling some of the fog made me whimper. I forced myself to breathe normally.

  When I finally reached the core with my mind, I formed a swirl of pyxis influences, a rainbow whirlpool with proportions determined purely by instinct, and made it swell until I thought I’d burst. Then, with all the force I could muster, I hurled it toward the fog’s core. Stumbling back a couple of steps, I tried to watch the entire tree line at once.

  The fog dissipated and dissolved, leaving only clear air and sunshine. With a shuddering breath, I sank to my knees, pressing my palms into the grass and pine needle mat covering the ground.

  Someone touched the top of my head. Aunt Dorothy’s canvas sneakers appeared near my fingers.

  Corinne? Mason’s faint voice was distorted, as though it traveled to me over a great distance.

  Hands maneuvered me by the arms and shoulders until I sat with my back against a tree stump. I tried to ask Aunt Dorothy whether we’d passed the drill, but my lips remained stubbornly slack. She pressed something soft into my hand and closed my fingers around it, holding my hand in a weak fist, and after a moment, strength began to return to my muscles. I uncurled my fingers and looked down at a small sprig of slender, pale green stems with purple flowers so tiny they were hardly more than dots.

  “Looks innocent enough, but it’s very powerful for restoring strength,” Aunt Dorothy said.

  “What happened?” I finally managed. Ang, Sophie, Mason, and Mr. Sykes stood around me in a concerned ring.

  “You nearly burned yourself out.” Aunt Dorothy sounded matter-of-fact, but her eyebrows drew together, shadowing her eyes. “A valiant effort, but wholly unnecessary to strain yourself that way. We’re going to try that again, but this time working together.”

  “I’m sorry, Corinne,” Ang said. “I wanted to help, but I didn’t know what to do.”

  I looked at Aunt Dorothy. “Yeah, how are we supposed to work together if we don’t know how?” I tried to keep my irritation in check. But what was the point of throwing us into a drill with no warnings or direction?

  “She’s right,” Mr. Sykes said, and sighed. “We didn’t know either, when we started.”

  Aunt Dorothy harrumphed and planted her hands on her hips. “I suppose you could be right.”

  I gave Mr. Sykes a tiny, grateful smile, and he winked when Aunt Dorothy wasn’t looking.

  “While Corinne recovers a bit more, we’ll have a lesson.” My great aunt squared her shoulders and assumed the teacherly air she’d had earlier. “Guardians, the net you wove earlier is very useful in a drill such as this one. If you were to cast a net in the shape of a funnel, Corinne could use it to amplify the influences so she would not have to use up so much energy.”

  “A funnel?” Sophie said, an incredulous frown making her eyes all squinty. “No offense, but it took us, like, all morning just to cast one net over a bunch of flowers. How are we supposed to make one into a complicated shape when we’re freaking out over some nasty black fog?”

  I held my breath, waiting—and kind of hoping—that Aunt Dorothy would reprimand Sophie for her snotty tone. But no reproach came.

  “It’s not much more complicated, my dear. Here, let us have the two of you try it. Form one that begins at that rock and narrows all the way to that large shrub.” Aunt Dorothy gestured. “As though the center is being pulled away from you while the edges remain stationary.”

  Ang and Sophie started to weave a funnel that winked out of existence a few seconds later.

  What was that? I said to Mason. If I talked like that to Aunt Dorothy, she’d burn holes through my head with her eyes.

  Yeah, that was weird, he agreed. You going to be okay?

  A few more minutes, and I think I will be. I examined the tiny flowers in my palm again.

  Mason sat down next to me, his back against the stump and his upper arm pressed against mine. A small surge of energy spread from where our bare skin touched, filling me with warmth and strength.

  It’s too bad you can’t see this, I said. After a few more tries, the two Guardians formed a funnel that held. Aunt Dorothy whispered something to Mr. S, and they both nodded. “Excellent!” she called. “Now see if you can extend and shorten it.”

  The gossamer funnel shivered, then began to stretch past the meadow and into the woods beyond. Then it shrank back on itself, growing more compact until the wide end and the narrow end were only a few feet apart. Sophie stood with her feet planted wide and fists clamped against her thighs, but she looked a lot calmer than she had earlier today. Ang’s face was soft, her eyes intent and unblinking.

  “One more challenge,” Aunt Dorothy said, pointing. “Swing it around ninety degrees.”

  The narrow end of the funnel rotated from west to south.

  “Way to go!” I cheered. This could work. If I could send a burst of influences swirling around the inner walls of the funnel, gaining momentum as it neared the narrow end, it would shoot like a bullet into its target.

  Aunt Dorothy nodded with satisfaction, and they all joined me and Mason.

  “I’m sorry, but I just have to ask something,” Sophie said. She jutted out her hip and planted her hand on it.

  “Please do,” Aunt Dorothy said.

  “Why are we fighting fog? I mean, it smells awful and it’s obviously made of something . . . evil, I guess. But so what? Couldn’t we just let the wind blow it away and not worry about it?”

  “It is not simply fog,” Aunt Dorothy said. “It is a sort of elemental material from which malevolence takes form, if it is left alone.”

  “What kind of form?” Mason asked.

  Aunt Dorothy hesitated and glanced at Mr. Sykes, and a silent agreement seemed to pass between them. “Human form,” she said.

  A cold shudder raised goose bumps up my arms and neck. No one spoke for several seconds.

  “It can take on human form, yes.” Mr. Sykes broke the silence. “But that requires considerable time and inattention on our part. Most likely, we would detect it and stop it before that ever happened. The larger concern is an
entirely different scenario. The fog’s essence also can infect people. It may infect their bodies, their minds, or both. Those who are weak—either in body or in mind—are most vulnerable.”

  Aunt Dorothy took in our tense faces. “As Harold said, we won’t let that happen. Let’s try the drill again, shall we?”

  Mason pulled me up, and I stood for a second, testing my balance and strength. I flexed my hands and shook out my arms, surprised to find my muscles so renewed.

  Aunt Dorothy once again lit a match under the grooved chunk of wood, and we all assumed our positions around the meadow.

  My heart pounded as I waited for the fog to appear among the Ponderosa pines, but I stood determined, with my feet planted wide.

  As soon as you see it, go ahead with the funnel, I said to the two Guardians through our link. I’ll try to keep the influences aimed down the middle, because I’m not sure what will happen if I bump the sides too hard.

  Ang and Sophie nodded in unison, but didn’t reply. I wondered if they were already communicating with each other through their private link.

  A low groan like a distant foghorn drifted from the forest, and the first tendrils of fog crept into view. It built on itself, like waves from an unseen sea, and began rushing toward us much more rapidly than last time. Blue sparks flew from my left, where Mason stood, but I kept my focus ahead.

  The gossamer funnel shimmered into place, and I probed for the heart of the cloud billowing over the meadow.

  Rotate it to the right. Aim at the tallest tree, I said to Ang and Sophie.

  I drew a slow breath and turned my focus inward, gathering a swirl of pyxis influences much smaller than the previous one I’d used, resisting the urge to build as much as I could hold.

  The leading tendrils of fog reached toward the Guardians, mere feet away from their legs, and my heart pounded harder. The funnel moved into place, and as soon as it stopped, I let loose with the influences. A barely visible shimmer passed over the inner surface of the funnel, curling toward the narrow tip. Sophie and Ang both teetered as if the ground shook beneath them, but the funnel stayed still and intact.