Darkness Undone: A Novel of the Marked Souls

by Jessa Slade

  He swung his legs off the side of the bed. When he tried to push himself upright, his knees buckled. He caught himself, barely, before his head smashed onto the floor. His fingers skidded across the wet floor.

  What the … ?

  His bedroom was toe-deep in water. And since he suddenly remembered his bedroom was a lower berth on the River Princess, not his childhood old singlewide on the rez, water wasn’t good.

  And he hadn’t been drinking except for a single tumbler of scotch to calm himself after Alyce and her big brave Anglo had abandoned ship. He shook his head, and his braid slapped his cheek hard enough to rouse him to attention.

  He tried to pull his legs under him again but succeeded only in making a bilge water wave around his silk pajama bottoms. Where was his damn djinni?

  His vision doubled, then redoubled again, until the walls of his berth seemed a million miles away. Had crazy Alyce slipped him a Wonderland pill to make him smaller?

  A poison pill to shrink a demon … Birnenston.

  He always kept the toxic leach of the djinni off his sheets. He was at least that civilized—or had been for a long time. He’d learned to keep himself chained.

  Anger burned off some of the mental smog, and he gathered himself for another try at standing. He wasn’t going to drown like a baby in an inch of water.

  With one elbow hooked over the mattress, he managed to get to his knees. He shook his head again, and when his eyeballs stopped rolling around, he focused on the room.

  Water was gurgling under the door, slow but steady. But that wasn’t the worst.

  The streaks of sulfur yellow climbing the walls were much, much worse.

  He cursed. This wasn’t some wicked wet dream of his demon. Someone had invaded the River Princess and infected her with birnenston.

  The noxious by-product of tenebrae accumulated wherever too many of them gathered. In sufficient amounts—such as, oh, say the amount currently wallpapering his bedroom—it could spontaneously ignite. And the birnenston was toxic to any spectral thing, including the horde themselves. Even evil didn’t want to sit in its own shit.

  It was yet another good reason to have rejected Magdalena’s idiot henchman and his invitation to tea and mayhem.

  Except now he didn’t have someone to pull him up. He was alone.

  Thorne looked around at his slowly sinking ship. He’d told the talyan he’d rather be outcast than a pawn again. But there were other places on the chessboard.

  Only two sides existed, though, and Alyce had already chosen.

  He tsked at his muddled thinking. Hadn’t he already told them they’d never had a choice?

  And when he stopped tsking, he realized that the soft ticking continued. He hadn’t heard that sound in forty some years.

  Somebody hadn’t trusted the birnenston to do its dirty work without a bit of incentive; there was a bomb aboard.

  “Fuck,” he said.

  Burned, drowned, and blown to bits. That somebody wasn’t giving him a lot of options.

  Never mind waiting for his djinni to crawl up from his depths. His anger spiked to fury, and he jolted to his feet and toward the door. He missed the door and hit the wall with both palms outstretched. The birnenston ate into his hands, but he couldn’t yank back without losing his balance. Better to lose some skin. That the djinni could replace.

  How degrading. He worked his way down the wall to the door and jerked it open.

  Water, almost knee-deep outside, swept in and knocked his feet out from under him. He went down with a curse and a gurgle.

  At least the dousing thinned the birnenston smog in his head. He righted himself more quickly this time and waded back to the door.

  The lower deck was awash. A few items drifted on the current pulsing in from his office as the Princess wallowed, sinking aft. A clear plastic baggie—knotted and half-full of water—bobbed past him, a piece of paper affixed to the knot.

  That hadn’t been onboard earlier.

  If he could dismantle the timer …

  But when he eased the bag from the water, instead of a nice brick of C4 explosives, two yellow shapes circled in front of his eyes.

  His half-moon bettas … Trapped in the confined space, they’d been after each other, and their perfect half-circle fins were shredded.

  Alive, read the note. For now.

  Bag clutched in his hand, Thorne waded for the stairs. The farther from his room he went, the faster he moved. By the time he hit the main deck—the morning sun near blinding to the frantically ascending djinni—he was running.

  He wished he hadn’t been so paranoid as to remove the gangplank to the pier every night since Carlo’s visit. It was going to be a long jump.

  He launched himself across the empty space between boat and pier just as the Princess exploded. The pressure bashed his eardrums, and he flailed, like another armful of kindling thrown into the air.

  He hit the pier and rolled. The rough concrete tore his bare shoulders as he curled around the baggie tucked to his chest. Around him, pieces of the Princess rained down, ignited at both ends and burning toward their centers with the ferocious, slow-consuming hunger of the birnenston. There’d be only black char when the fire went out, but it would take a preternaturally long time.

  Someone was screaming, but it wasn’t him.

  The heat of the explosion scorched his back as he walked away. When he was done, he’d make sure there was nothing but black.

  CHAPTER 22

  “I swear it wasn’t me,” Archer repeated. “It was just an idea.”

  “It was a good one,” Sid said. The other talyan, gathered in Liam’s office, nodded.

  Liam threw down the newspaper on his desk. The above-the-fold photo on the metro section featured the River Princess, listing hopelessly and engulfed in venomous yellow flames. The heat had blown out or melted the tinted windows, and a brilliant blue autumn sky puffed with white clouds shone through the holes. Sid might have blamed overly enthusiastic Photoshopping for the unnatural color and the downward sweep of the conflagration. Except he knew it wasn’t so much unnatural as supernatural.

  “A birnenston-fueled fire will make great footage for the evening news,” he said. “She might still be burning.”

  “At least no one can get close enough to be infected.” Liam turned to the laptop Archer had brought. “They’re updating the story hourly and still haven’t speculated on a cause.”

  “Speculation will get them nowhere this time,” Sid assured him.

  Liam let out a sound somewhere between a grumble and a sigh before pinning Archer with another annoyed look.

  Archer raised one hand. “I swear.”

  “Hoarding that much birnenston isn’t a talya trick anyway,” Sid pointed out. “Whatever metaphysical quirk makes our demons repentant spares them that nastiness.”

  Liam rubbed his temple. “Why would one djinn-man poison another?”

  Jilly bumped his hand aside and took over the massage. “Why does Ecco drink right out of the OJ cartons?”

  “Because he’s a rude beast,” Sera said. “That’s reason enough for a djinn-man to court the eternal enmity of another?”

  Jilly shrugged. “They probably have their own ideas about what makes for courting, same as we do.”

  Sera shook her head. “I don’t think destroying Thorne’s home, key source of income, and the external manifestation of his persona in one fell swoop is a good way to make friends.”

  “But it doesn’t give him a lot of choice about what he does next, does it?” Sid tapped his pen against the notepad on his lap. “If they wanted to drive him in a particular direction …”

  “Like into a blind fury.” Archer tweaked the computer out from under Liam’s nose. “I’ll keep an eye on the story. I’m curious if we might get a hint—maybe from the insurance claim—who might have benefited from covering for his illegal gambling operation.”

  Liam grunted. “Run it by Bella. She has a sense for shady business in this town.�
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  Archer held his hand out to Sera. “We’ll see what we have by tonight.”

  “The forecast calls for rain later,” Sid said, “but the fire won’t go out until the boat sinks and the birnenston dissipates. Then there won’t be anything for the fire marshal to collect, much less analyze.”

  “Maybe we can make sure of that,” Liam said. “I’ll send Pitch to put a hole through the hull if necessary.”

  Archer lifted one brow. “You want to send him that close to a djinn-man. Sometimes I wonder. …”

  “He’s subtle,” Liam said. “He won’t leave a sign to follow.”

  “It won’t matter,” Alyce said. “Thorne will blame us.”

  Sid watched her twist the rivet on her finger and wondered if she could wind his nerves any tighter. “Why would he blame us? As I said, birnenston isn’t a teshuva weapon.”

  She kept her gaze on the ring. “I didn’t say he would think we did it. I said he’d blame us.”

  “Unreasonable,” Sid objected.

  Finally she slid him an arch glance. “You can tell him that.”

  “He’ll have enough on his plate for today,” Liam said. “What with avoiding the reporters and police.”

  Alyce shrugged. “But tonight …”

  Liam stood, and the talyan followed suit. “Everybody, take a nice nap this afternoon.”

  They split up in the hallway, Archer and Sera to follow the cyber trail, Liam and Jilly to track down Pitch presumably, and Alyce …

  “Wait up.” Sid hurried after her while the others continued on their way. “Where are you going?”

  “To my room, as Liam said.”

  Sid’s hackles prickled. “Because he said.” His tone fell flat.

  She kept walking. “Because it made sense.”

  “Oh well, in that case …”

  She stopped abruptly and faced him. “Am I not allowed to follow good sense when I hear it? Does that not fit your understanding of a rogue?”

  He bristled back. “You’ve been displaying some of your previous aberrant ways since we got back from the hospital, and just now you seemed almost admiring of Thorne’s reprehensible behavior.”

  Her eyes widened. “Admiring? I am dreading it.”

  “Well, your demon has a special affinity for dread, so that would explain—”

  She stepped right up to his toes. “Explain what?”

  “Why you like him.”

  “Like him? I’ve tried to kill him. More than once.”

  “And didn’t succeed.”

  She gave him a disbelieving glare. “Because he is possessed by a powerful djinni, and I have the demonic equivalent of a windup toy.”

  “Or maybe because you didn’t want him to die because he was there for you when no one else was.” He watched her closely.

  She stiffened and took a step back. “He came around occasionally to poke at me and watch me flail. Which, yes, now that I think of it, is really very reprehensible.” She gave him a meaningful glare.

  He tried to shut up. After all, why was he needling her? Because she knew Thorne best? That made her an asset, not an enemy. And yet he found himself circling her, looking for the weakness in her armor, for a way in.

  She was weak, just as she claimed, but somehow she had closed herself against him. “You’re changing,” he said.

  She narrowed her eyes. “That’s a rogue for you. So erratic.”

  “Why are you wearing that rivet?”

  “It fits.”

  “That’s …”

  “Unreasonable? Aberrant?”

  He wouldn’t apologize for the words. If she was backsliding, they needed to get her back on the talya path. “That’s the sort of memory you don’t need.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  His jaw worked, but he couldn’t spit out anything that didn’t sound stupid.

  The angry spark in her eyes eased just a bit, and she nodded. “You’re learning.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “That you don’t know everything.”

  “I know you’ve been quiet and withdrawn ever since you destroyed the therapy room and took that piece away with you.”

  She sighed. “You think the ring is making me withdrawn?”

  “I think we pushed your rehabilitation too fast.”

  “Is that what you were doing in my bed?” She tilted her head. “Fixing me?”

  “Not just you,” he conceded. “My demon’s first ascension—just as your teshuva has been unbalanced all these years—made me susceptible too.”

  “But you’re over it now, and I’m still … aberrant.”

  A curse of frustration surged up in his throat, but that wouldn’t very well prove his own balance. “I just meant you shouldn’t dredge up memories that are going to set you back.”

  “Missing memories is what made me crazy,” she said. “I thought you’d understand; the more I know, the less I fear.” She held out her hand. The rivet was a dark stripe across her pale skin. “I lost the teshuva’s talisman somewhere across the years. I was left adrift. This can be the symbol of us beginning anew.”

  His heart skittered. “Us …”

  She curled her ringed hand into her chest, her gaze unwavering. “The demon and I. Who else?”

  The violence with which she’d flipped the steel table was nowhere in evidence, yet he ached as if she’d thrown him across the room and knocked the breath from him. “Who else. Right.”

  She watched him a moment. “Did you need something from me?”

  Answers churned through him, each less coherent than the last. How could he answer when he had barely formulated the questions? A good researcher didn’t want any particular outcome. He didn’t anticipate results. He observed what was.

  And she had said she loved him.

  He stared into her eyes. Not so clear and still as before; there were shadows and secrets shifting below the icy blue.

  Did she love him now? Did he want her to? And when had he stopped knowing his own mind?

  He shook his head. “I don’t need anything else.”

  She turned on her heel and left him standing there.

  Hard to believe, but the Bowl Me Over looked worse in the light of day.

  Thorne supposed the same could be said of him. The birnenston explosion had left him shaking and sick as no fortified wine ever had. The scrawny maple tree at the edge of the parking lot was the only thing holding him upright.

  When the silver limousine rolled into the lot, the reflected glare of sunlight stabbed his eyes. He sucked down a few quick breaths, trying to force his djinni higher. Instead, he gagged on the lingering taste of sulfur and crumpled to his knees. His palm skidded across the pavement. The cracked asphalt peeled up divots of skin before he caught himself.

  The limo eased to a gentle stop just beyond his tight-clenched knuckles. The door, when it swung open, barely missed his bowed head.

  Pride—or panic—coursed down his spine, urging him to straighten, but the sudden demonic presence was an unrelenting heavy hand on the back of his neck.

  He kept his gaze fixed on the high heels that emerged, one, two, in front of his nose. The satiny pumps were the same color as night storm clouds over the city that swallowed all the multicolored light and reflected back only gray.

  “What reverence you show me, Mr. Halfmoon, but please, get up.” The feminine voice was as satin-smooth as the gray heels, though the sharp point was hidden—for the moment.

  Thorne’s stomach clenched, somewhere between a dry heave and a futile attempt to right himself. Only a hard grip on his biceps got him to his feet.

  Still swaying, he stared into Carlo’s squinting sneer. “I take it you gave Magdalena my message?”

  The wise guy’s lip curled up another mocking notch. “Was a shame that fireplace on your boat was so squeaky clean. Well, I guess you got one fire out of it anyway.”

  Thorne wrenched his arm from Carlo’s grip, tearing the office drone dr
ess shirt he’d taken from the dry cleaner to replace his birnenston-stained pajamas. He continued the quick upward thrust with a crack into the wise guy’s septum.

  Carlo howled and staggered back, clutching his face. Thorne steadied himself in the ratty sneakers that had been the only shoes at the dry cleaner—taken off the dry cleaner. That had been just a casual bit of obligatory violence, reviving his djinni not at all. Bloodying Carlo, though, felt good. The demon in Thorne finally settled into wary stillness.

  This left him facing Magdalena, without the other djinn-man in the way.

  The djinn-men, like most apex predators, were not overly numerous and stayed out of one another’s territory whenever possible. In his decades possessed, he’d met fewer than a dozen of his brethren face-to-face. But even he knew of Magdalena.

  Not that anyone knew much. She was as beautiful as they’d said, sloe-eyed and naturally red lipped, with rich dark hair and sun-kissed skin despite the lateness of the season. And now he knew the rumors of her powerful djinni were not exaggerated either.

  “Carlo,” she said, raising that satin voice to be heard over the wise guy’s muffled cursing, “stay with the car, will you? Mr. Halfmoon, walk with me a moment.”

  Did he have a choice? His feet started moving without his conscious thought. Apparently not.

  “‘Walk with me,’” he growled. “You learned that line from your pet mobster.”

  She met his narrowed gaze directly and inclined her head, dark waves of her hair shifting around the shoulders of her slim dove-gray suit. All the drab tones should have sucked the life from her; instead, her coloring seemed even more alluring. “Carlo has been telling me about gathering like-minded souls, about creating a family, if you will.”

  “No doubt he has,” Thorne said. “He likes to talk.”

  “And I am a good listener.” She guided him out of the parking lot, following the chain-link fence. Though the slabs of sidewalk concrete had buckled in places, she glided forward as if those high heels never touched the ground. “So, Mr. Halfmoon, what do you want to tell me?”