Kindling the Darkness

by Jane Kindred

  Oliver kept his mouth shut.

  Artie spoke into the intercom on the wall. “Let’s try one.”

  One of the agents punched Pete in the face. Nothing happened. Oliver could have told them it wouldn’t. Only drawing blood seemed to trigger the protective magic.

  “Why don’t you try a sustained effort?” Artie said into the intercom. “Let’s make it good this time.”

  Despite his outrage, Oliver tried not to react as the agent punched the were-badger, beating him relentlessly until Pete was semiconscious. Only when Pete’s face was dripping with blood did it start to affect Oliver. He sucked in his breath, partly in anger and partly because of the pain.

  Finch peered closely at him. “Damn, Artie. I think it’s actually working.” He touched the left side of Oliver’s face, where pain was starting to throb in his cheek and his jaw as if bones had been broken. “Those are new bruises.”

  Artie smiled. “Hard to tell with all the others.”

  Through the video feed, Pete’s bruises were fading.

  Artie hit the button again. “Let’s have another demonstration.”

  This time, the agent unsheathed his knife and stabbed Pete in the gut. The initial pain was clearly felt by Pete, despite his disoriented state, but the agent lifted Pete’s shirt to reveal that although the blood was still there, the wound had already closed.

  Artie nodded to Oliver. “Lift up your shirt.”

  Oliver didn’t move, not because he was trying to defy Artie, necessarily, but because the pain from the stab to the gut had taken his breath away.

  “Finch, do the honors,” said Artie.

  Finch pulled up the hem of Oliver’s shirt to reveal the stab wound. It would be a few minutes before it began to heal.

  Artie, looking pleased with himself, directed the agent with Pete to perform one more test. The agent took out his gun.

  Oliver jumped to his feet. “All right, dammit. You’ve made your point. You don’t have to keep putting him through this.”

  “Putting him through it, Ollie? Or putting you through it?”

  “Maybe just skip the middleman, then, and do it to me yourself, if you have the guts.”

  Glaring, Artie barked an order to shoot.

  The agent fired into Pete’s knee, and Oliver buckled with a shout, falling back into the chair, swearing profusely. With a nod from Artie, Finch took out his knife and cut the bottom half of the jeans away from the leg that should have been affected. There was no blood—Oliver rarely bled from these wounds—but it was clear the kneecap had been shattered.

  “I gotta say...” Artie shook his head. “I’d love to find out what would happen if we blasted away half that thing’s skull or hacked off its head, but I think this demonstration has been sufficient to prove the claims.” He opened up a case next to the laptop to reveal a med kit with syringes and an array of filled pharmaceutical vials.

  Oliver bit back the pain still throbbing in his knee. “What the hell is that for?”

  “Per your own admission, you don’t know what the basis of your fire-based telekinesis is. Do you want to change your story about that?”

  “Since it’s not a story, no. I’m telling you the God’s honest truth.”

  “And despite your earlier lies, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt about this. So what we’re going to do is see if we can find the biological triggers.” Artie uncapped a syringe and picked up one of the vials. “This is a little something we borrowed from Smok Biotech’s labs.” He unsealed the vial and filled the syringe. “I don’t understand the science gobbledygook, but the idea is to provide an incentive for your body to do its thing. This stuff is kind of like a flu vaccine, as I understand it. Introduces a little something to your bloodstream that your body has to fight off. Darkrock’s research team is hoping it will fight it off with a little pyrotechnic demonstration.”

  Artie held up the syringe. “Now. Are you going to be a good little freak or do we have to cuff you again?”

  Oliver sighed and held out his arm for the injection. There wasn’t much point in fighting it. And maybe this drug wouldn’t do a thing. Though he’d technically been honest with them about not knowing how his ability had come about, he knew his uncontrolled rage had been the catalyst, and he wasn’t about to let them know that.

  So far he’d been able to control his anger. Depending on what this drug did to him, he hoped he’d be able to continue to maintain an even keel.

  Artie tossed the used syringe and bottle in the trash. “Since we don’t know exactly what you can do, we’ve made sure there’s nothing combustible in this room except some boxes of paper.” He grinned. “And Finch and I are going to take our combustible bodies outta here. Have fun.” They took their equipment with them and left Oliver in the chair. No doubt they’d be watching over their video feed.

  While he steeled himself for the drug’s effects, Oliver closed his eyes and repeated his mantra in his head—Semper Fi—because it was easy to remember, and it worked on so many conscious and unconscious levels.

  He cleared his mind, focusing on nothing but the sound of the words in his head. Let any other thoughts flow in and out without responding to them, without being affected by them. Thoughts were mere impulses in the brain, snatches of memory that floated about in his head like wisps of smoke and dissipated. Meaningless. He was empty. Unencumbered by physical needs or desires. There was nothing but the silence and the words.

  Semper Fi. He wasn’t feeling any effects from the drug yet. Oliver opened his eyes. He ought to be feeling something by now. Maybe it wasn’t formulated for his kind of trigger if it wasn’t biological in nature. Or maybe the drug was nonsense, a placebo designed to get Oliver so worked up that he’d display his ability unwittingly.

  Semper Fi. Always faithful. Oliver played with the ring on his finger. Had he been faithful? Never during their five years of marriage had he strayed in thought or in deed. But was that the meaning of faithfulness? Checking off sins he’d resisted and winning brownie points? Did it matter that he’d been faithful then if he wasn’t being faithful now?

  And what would Vanessa think of him now? She’d probably think he was a joke, imagining he had some duty to protect things that weren’t human. Just as Lucy thought he was a joke deep down. And Lucy... Vanessa would think he was even more of a joke for imagining someone as sophisticated and wealthy—and young—as Lucy would be interested in him.

  Semper Fi. He was having trouble concentrating on what he’d come here for. Some kind of Darkrock debriefing. Right. They’d called him in from the field to report on the progress he’d made in... What was his mission? Damn, that drug really must be messing with his head. How could he forget his mission? Maybe that was the test. The experimental drug was something that affected his short-term memory, and they were testing him to see if he could remain faithful to the mission despite the lack of immediate context.

  Other than a little bit of brain fog, he was feeling pretty good.

  Semper Fi. What was his ring doing on his right hand? Oliver chuckled at himself and switched it back to the proper finger. Vanessa would kick his ass if she thought he was playing around on her.

  The door opened, and Oliver glanced up to see Artie Cooper and Tyler Finch.

  Artie smiled. “How’s it goin’, Chief?”

  “Hilarious, Artie. Very original.” He slapped his palms against his legs and got to his feet, adjusting the weight on his right leg as his knee gave him a twinge. “So, did I pass?”

  “With flying colors,” said Artie. “Fit as a fiddle. You’re cleared for active duty.”

  Oliver grinned. “Fantastic. What’s our target?”

  Chapter 22

  Ione’s wards were extremely effective against the hell beast. Lucy could tell by the escalating reports of sightings nearby. It was circling Jerome, unable to get within a half-mile
radius of Delectably Bookish. What Lucy hadn’t counted on was that something else might come for Colt. Or rather, someone else.

  Just before dawn, she was instantly alerted by a sound on the stairs. In a light sleep in Oliver’s room, she’d kept her conventionally loaded gun by her side. Lucy leaped from the bed, bare feet silent on the hardwood floor, and crept to the door, weapon in hand. Scanning the landing, she was relieved to see Oliver at the top of the stairs. Darkrock had released him after all. But before he turned and saw her standing there, more noise came from below. Three armed men were mounting the stairs behind him. That didn’t bode well.

  “Oliver?” Lucy lowered her gun but kept it ready at her side. “What’s going on?”

  He whirled and aimed his Beretta at her, his eyes scanning her—with a brief pause on her bare legs below the flannel nightshirt—as if he didn’t recognize her. “Lucy Smok.” Evidently, he did. But there was something a little off about him. “They told me you’d be hiding out here, but I guess I had to see for myself.”

  “Hiding out? What are you talking about?”

  One of the other operatives moved toward the closed door to the guest room where Colt was sleeping.

  Lucy stepped in front of him and blocked the door. “Unh-uh. You’ll have to go through me.” With her gun trained on the operative, she glanced at Oliver. “Are you going to do something about this? What are these guys doing here?”

  “Following my orders.” Oliver hadn’t lowered his pistol. “Step aside, or we will go through you.”

  The other two operatives raised a pair of AK-47s in her direction. Darkrock was nothing if not predictably overarmed.

  “Give me one good reason.”

  “Because you’re harboring a monster in there, and it’s my job to collect it. I would have thought it was your job, too, as the acting head of Smok International.”

  There was more than a little something off about him. There was something off about this whole thing.

  “He’s not a monster, and you damn well know it. If you’re working with Darkrock, you should be going after the hell beast, not a harmless kid. And why let him go just to come straight here after him? Is this a test for you or something?”

  Oliver’s finger moved closer to the trigger of his Beretta. “I’m not going to have a discussion with you about my mission, and I’m not going to tell you again. Drop the weapon and step aside.”

  Instead, she fired her weapon at the operative to her right. Not to hit him—well, maybe just graze him a little, give him something to think about. It would be the warning Colt needed. They were fast, the other operative striking her arm and going for her gun and the one she’d grazed firing off a round that just missed her as she ducked for a counterstrike against the first operative. The bullet whizzed over her head and hit the wall. After elbow punching the one in front of her in the sternum and knocking the other gunman off his feet with a roundhouse to his shins, Lucy looked up into the barrel of Oliver’s gun.

  He pressed the Beretta against her forehead while one of the others disarmed her. “Step. Aside.”

  With her enhanced hearing, she caught the snick of the latch on the window in the guest room. Colt had taken heed.

  Lucy shrugged and moved out of Oliver’s way. “You could have said please.”

  Oliver kicked the door in—his own door, which wasn’t locked—and his eyes swept the room. Lucy leaned against the busted door frame with her arms folded, giving Oliver a smug smile when his gaze finally came back to her.

  “Where is he?”

  “Beats me.”

  Oliver checked the window. Finding it ajar, he opened it to look down into the alley but evidently saw nothing. A faint acrid scent drifted into the room through the window, like a brush fire burning in the distance, and something yipped, and another something answered, like coyotes calling to each other.

  He turned back to Lucy, studying her with a closed expression. If he was playing a role for Darkrock to save his own skin, he was hiding it well. He also looked painfully attractive in his Darkrock gear—black combat fatigues and heavy boots, black long-sleeved cotton T that hugged him perfectly. It made him look younger, tougher. He also had a few bruises on his face that appeared to be his own, as though someone had worked him over. And it wasn’t the only thing that was different about him. The gray in his hair was significantly less—and his ring was on his left hand.

  Oliver holstered his handgun. “This isn’t over, Smok. We’ve got eyes on you.”

  Lucy followed him to the top of the landing. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Figure it out.” He gestured to his men and headed back down the stairs.

  Lucy watched them clomp through the artfully arranged stacks of books, Oliver treating the decor with the same disinterested contempt as his men, and stared after them as the door to the street swung shut behind them with a sharp rattle of the little bell.

  The air outside was icy. Lucy shivered and rubbed her arms after locking the door. What had happened at that compound?

  “Figure it out.” Was that a message of some kind that he was trying to give her without alerting the Darkrock team, or was he just being a dick? Whatever he’d meant, she damn well was going to figure it out. All of it—what he was up to, what Darkrock was up to. But she was also going to have to figure out where Colt had gone.

  Dammit. After all the trouble Ione had gone to in setting the wards to keep the hell beast out, Colt was out there on his own, defenseless, with both Darkrock and the hell beast hunting him, and Lucy felt responsible for both. As she went back to the bedroom to get dressed, that little echoing yip from the hills haunted her. She had no doubt the first had been Colt’s cry. But who had answered?

  Before she could head out the door to go in search of Colt, someone rang the bell. As Oliver had made a point of that first day, the shop didn’t open until noon. It was probably a delivery. Lucy pulled aside the shade to look and was surprised to see Phoebe Carlisle-Diamante standing outside.

  “Phoebe?” She unlocked the door and opened it. “What’s wrong? Has something happened?” The Carlisle sisters weren’t known for being early risers.

  “You might say that. Can I come in?”

  Lucy shrugged and held the door open. “Would you like some coffee?”

  Phoebe glanced around at the place as if she hadn’t seen it before. Or as if she had, actually, and was a little choked up, like someone coming home after a long absence. “No, thanks.” She met Lucy’s eyes, and Lucy had the distinct impression that her eye color had changed. Didn’t Phoebe have the sort of blue eyes that were described as violet? Right now they looked more hazel, almost brown. “I want to tell you, first of all, that this is all on the up-and-up. I have the evocator’s consent.”

  “The evocator?” Lucy’s eyes narrowed. It was the term for what Phoebe did, letting shades speak through her. “You’re not Phoebe.”

  Phoebe shook her head and pulled awkwardly at the habitual ponytail, as though its height on the back of her head bothered her. “My name is Vanessa Benally. I’m Oliver’s wife.”

  Chapter 23

  Lucy sank onto the nearest chair. “I see. How can I help you, Vanessa?”

  “I know you have a physical relationship with Oliver. You don’t need to feel awkward about it. It’s only natural that he’d find somebody eventually.”

  “I wouldn’t call it a relationship—”

  “But you care about him.”

  Lucy bristled. She didn’t do emotional attachments. She hardly knew Oliver. “I’m not sure what difference it makes whether I do or I don’t. Whatever you have to say to me, just say it.”

  Phoebe smiled—a little thin, slightly sad smile that was nothing like Phoebe’s. “I am saying it. I’ve been here for years trying to get Oliver’s attention. He talks to Jerome’s regular haunts all the time, even though
he can’t see them. But as much as he’s attuned to their vibrations and to the folks he likes to call undergrounders, he’s never noticed me. Or maybe he doesn’t want to notice me. The point is, when I saw Phoebe here yesterday, I followed her home because I knew she could sense me. I had to find a way to speak to you.” She tugged down the edges of her faux jaguar winter coat as if adjusting a military uniform. “Darkrock is up to their old tricks. They used to treat us all like guinea pigs, telling us they were giving us vitamin shots or inoculations against vampirism. They’ve used something on Oliver, some kind of mind control drug to make him compliant.”

  It certainly explained his odd behavior this morning. “So he thinks he’s still working for them.”

  “Yes. And I know it goes against everything he is now. He doesn’t want this.” She chewed her lip. “There’s more, but I need to tell Oliver directly.”

  “This drug.” Lucy rubbed the buzzed hair at the back of her neck. “You don’t happen to know what it was called, do you?”

  Phoebe’s eyes clouded for a moment, literally changing from the muddy hazel to violet right in front of Lucy. “She sees something, a symbol on the bottles, but she can’t articulate it.”

  “Phoebe?”

  “Yeah, sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “The symbol...was it a wyvern? A small dragon in silhouette?”

  Phoebe thought for a moment, her demeanor changing once more, along with her eye color. “A dragon. Yes. The labels had a dragon on them.”

  It was Smok’s trademark. A sneaking suspicion had begun to nag at Lucy as Vanessa spoke about the mind control drug. Smok Biotech had one in development, one that enabled the person administering it to literally inject a suggestion into the subject’s mind. A suggestion like “you’re on a mission for Darkrock.” The subject wouldn’t question it, because it would come with its own little story line to assuage any cognitive dissonance. And it could even include enhancements to make the story work—like getting rid of his prominent gray so he would believe he was younger.