Dark Light of Day

by Jill Archer

  Noon—

  Missing Mederies were a demon’s offering to Lucifer.

  We’re being held at the tomb. Send help.

  —Peter

  What? I didn’t understand. If the rogare was Vigilia as I suspected, why would she be making offerings to Lucifer? Was that how she planned on getting her followers back? By killing a few and then hoping Luck would return her sacrifice to her three times over? It didn’t make sense. First off, I doubted any of the Mederies that she’d attacked or abducted were her followers. My understanding from the research I’d done was that no one followed her anymore. Second, how did she even know where Lucifer’s tomb was? Peter and I had just found it last week.

  My heart thundered and I could barely string enough coherent thoughts together to make a plan. In the dark, I fumbled for my clothes and then went to go wake Ari.

  “Night and Peter are in trouble,” I said, shaking him awake a few minutes later. I dragged him down to my room to look at the mirror message. To save time, I thrust the piece of paper with the deciphered note at him, but he waved it away.

  “I know what it says. I just don’t understand it. What tomb does he mean?”

  “Lucifer’s.”

  Ari shook his head in confusion. “That’s impossible. No one knows where it is.”

  “I do,” I said softly. “Peter and I found it. The night we went looking for the spell.”

  Ari stared at me. “The night you had dinner together at Empyr.”

  I nodded, two guilty red spots forming on my cheeks.

  Ari had always suspected, correctly, that something had happened between Peter and me that night, but I’d never told him anything other than we’d found the spell. From the look on his face, learning about other discoveries we’d made, other secrets we’d been keeping, obviously didn’t sit well with him.

  “You can’t possibly be jealous now,” I said incredulously.

  Ari shrugged and then his expression turned feral. “All I know is that I’d leave Peter Aster to the demons if it weren’t for the fact that your brother is there with him.”

  His threat was so real, my stomach turned to ice water. He meant it.

  “Well, thankfully, it’s not your choice to make,” I said and turned toward the door.

  “You should stay here.”

  I stopped in my tracks, the red stain of guilt on my face turning to anger. “No.”

  “Peter said ‘send help,’ not come yourself. You think he wants you walking into the lair of a psychotic demon?”

  “I don’t care. I’m going. Besides, you don’t even know where the tomb is.”

  “Noon, this demon has to know that if it’s caught, it’ll be killed. I don’t want to bring you.”

  “Why? Because I’m inexperienced? Or because you’re being overprotective?”

  “Both.”

  “That’s not good enough. You can’t have it both ways, Ari. You can’t convince me to keep training as a Maegester and then ask me to run for cover every time there’s demon trouble.”

  “This is more than trouble. ‘Trouble’ is what the Greenwalds got at Blacken Ridge when Rictus appeared insisting they follow a strict interpretation of the contract they’d signed. ‘Trouble’ is what’s brewing between the two demons squabbling over Clara Verdigris’ tumble with Owen Amberworth.

  “This may be a demon abducting members of the Host and possibly murdering them. If even half of what Peter’s message says is true, my services as an executioner would be required. This demon will have to be put down—killed, Noon—and you don’t like killing.”

  “You’re right, Ari. I hate killing. But you know what I hate even more? The thought of Night and Peter needing help and me just standing by doing nothing when, for once, my magic is the kind of magic that might actually help someone. So I’m going, whether you like it or not.”

  We stood facing each other, our signatures stretched like two balloons about to burst. I honestly don’t know what I would have said to him next. Possibly something unforgivable. But my mother’s presence in the doorway redirected my attention. She could have been standing there the whole time. There was no way to know when she’d arrived and how much she’d heard. But I was pretty sure from the look on her face that she’d heard enough.

  With a muffled sob, she tore from the doorway and ran down the hall. I gave chase, at first not knowing why. We had to get out of here now! Even if my mother had heard everything, how could she help? She hadn’t practiced the Mederi arts for over twenty years. But, as I chased her, I thought about what Ari had said. He was right. Killing might be required. And that meant I might be killed. Tonight’s journey might be a one-way ticket I bought for myself. I didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye. Despite everything, I didn’t want to leave with any bitterness between us.

  I found her in the most unlikely of places—her old garden.

  “Why did you come here?” Out of all the things I could have opened with, I love you… I forgive you… I’m sorry—it was the first thing I blurted out.

  Ari arrived a few seconds later. “Noon! You chased her into the garden?” He looked around at all the blackened, twisted wreckage. If it were daylight, he might have realized his mistake. But the silvery milk wash of the moon’s light made the black look shiny and new. My mother started laughing, but the sound was half-hysterical, half-hiccup.

  “I did this,” she said, almost proudly, gesturing to an acre’s worth of dead plants and charred debris. She slipped to her knees and knelt in the ashes. “I came here,” she said, answering my earlier question, “because this is where I ran the first time Luck tried to take you and your brother from me.

  “When I married your father, I was barely twenty. A little young for marriage, but we were so in love.” She looked up at me; I suppose to gauge my reaction. The idea of my parents ever having been in love was pretty hard to believe.

  “We were impatient to start our lives together,” she continued, her voice low with recollection. “I moved in here and planted my first garden. Edhen they called it, because, even at twenty, I could create a paradise. Nothing was impervious to my touch. My fingers had only to graze the length of a stem and it would burst into bloom. I had only to press my palms against the bare bark of a tree to flush it. I could stroke my fingertip down the belly of mother earth and new seedlings would shoot from the ground. But from my womb? Nothing. Finally, after a year of despair, my monthly courses stopped and I dared to hope.”

  She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and rubbed. Despite my impatience to get to the tomb, I sank down beside her. Somehow, I knew that brief moment of hope she’d just described had been the apex of her life.

  “I started to cramp and bleed,” she said next, confirming my guess. “The blood was awful. Just a few little brown spots, no bigger than seeds. But they were the seeds of death and I was petrified. And then those little brown seeds burst into bright red bloom and I thought I would lose you. Pulling my hair out, scratching my face, I ran to my garden and knelt—right here—and I prayed.”

  “Prayed?” I said, confused. She had to have meant pleaded. Members of the Host didn’t pray. Ever.

  But my mother nodded. “I pleaded to Luck. And then I prayed to Him.” I heard Ari’s sharp intake of breath.

  “But you’re Host!” I cried.

  “I didn’t care! I still don’t!” She practically bared her teeth. “I pleaded to Luck to save you. I prayed to Him to hear me. I wanted you to live and I called on them both to help.” She lowered her head and looked at her hands, which were now clasped in front of her. “I don’t know who answered,” she said softly. “One of them did, because suddenly I felt the two of you alive and strong, kicking inside me.”

  For a moment, I froze. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know what to say. My whole life I’d questioned my mother’s affection and now she’d just revealed that she’d sold her soul so that I might live. I swallowed, nearly choking, and looked over at Ari. He was star
ing down at my mother’s clasped hands.

  “Did your prayer include a promise?” he said flatly. I was surprised by the lack of compassion in his voice. My mother laughed unpleasantly and looked him square in the eye.

  “I promised Him that if he saved my children, I wouldn’t raise them to be a part of Lucifer’s Host.”

  Of course, I thought. What god would answer a prayer for someone in the enemy’s army?

  Every odd, cold act my mother had ever done suddenly became clear. Her actions had seemed almost cruel at times, but they made sense now. Enrolling me in the Barrister program at St. Luck’s and then putting the evergreen in my locker was her way of pushing me toward declaring without breaking her promise to the one who may have saved me. All along Aurelia had been motivated by one simple goal: she’d wanted her children to live.

  And now, one or both of us might die.

  We left my mother in the garden. It had been naive of me to think we’d have a tidy good-bye. Despite her revelation, I still had the impression she blamed me for being what I was. That somehow, even in utero, I’d rebelled against His touch and that’s the reason Night and I had been born the way we were. But it was now clear that my mother loved us ferociously. My mother was a lioness, with claws of her own. And the lengths she would go to in order to protect her cubs was truly frightening. Even now I wondered if she was offering up a moonlit prayer for our safe return.

  I sighed.

  “When we get to the north bank,” I said to Ari, “call Bryony.”

  “Bryony?”

  “Yes. Night and Peter are being held by a demon. How likely is it that they’re unhurt?” It’d been five days. How likely was it that they were still alive? But I shoved that thought down deep and refused to think about it.

  “Tell her to meet us at the tomb. It’s six leagues due east of St. Lucifer’s. Tell her to take a cab to Sheol and then walk into the woods. She’ll see our path.”

  Breadcrumbs were for kids in fairytales. Maegesters like us scorched the earth.

  Chapter 25

  When we arrived at the Etincelle dock, no one was there. A few ferries were tied up, but waning magic doesn’t work so well on machines. Ari and I were more likely to cause an explosion than an ignition if we tried to pilot one of the big boats so we “liberated” a small unnamed dinghy and reluctantly climbed aboard. I sat down on the small wooden bench and sliced my palm with a knife I found in a box under the seat. I chanted the name “Alacrity” as I made a fist and shook a couple drops of my blood on the floor. Ari gave me a grim look and pushed off. I raked my bleeding hand through the Lethe as he rowed us out into the river, giving Estes a further offering for haste and speed.

  I cannot imagine how long our journey would have taken had I not made these small offerings. As it was, the crossing was miserable. Ari wouldn’t let me take a turn at rowing, arguing that even in his exhausted state he could row farther and faster than I could. My helplessness made me want to slash every part of my body and bleed out until my blood reached the mouth of the sea. But that type of sacrifice wouldn’t be appreciated by an upstanding demon like Estes, and besides, little help I’d be to Night and Peter if I arrived dead on the north bank.

  Sometime in the early morning, hours before sunrise, we reached the other side. By that point every muscle in Ari’s body was shaking. I had to help him out of the boat. We found a public harmonic near the entrance to the docks and called Bryony. She agreed to meet us at the tomb. We had to walk a few blocks to find a cabriolet. Considering the time, I supposed it was Luck’s hand that we found one at all. We scrambled into the backseat and my instinct was to scoop Ari up and put him on my lap. But that was laughable. His body was huge compared to mine. My heart ached though, thinking of him going into battle against a demon in his current exhausted state. I wanted to tell him to stay behind, but I knew what he would say. So I pressed myself against him and hoped Bryony was right behind us.

  The cab dumped us in Sheol. The driver was pretty pissed about being stood up on the payment until I bared my demon mark and hissed at him to send me a bill. He took off, tires screeching. At that point, I was so worried about Night and Peter, I didn’t even care. Ari looked expectantly at me and I blazed a blackened path through the woods that legions could have followed.

  I retraced with Ari the steps Peter and I had taken. We crossed the same moonlit field, stopping to rest at the same place Peter and I had rested just before entering the forest. Unbidden, the memory of Peter’s kiss came to mind. So desperately did I wish for him and Night to be okay that I probably would have kissed him again, right then and there, even in front of Ari, if I could have. Instead I turned into the forest, indiscriminately killing low brush, grass, and saplings alike. I picked up a dead tree limb and torched its end. My fire lit our way.

  As before, we walked for what felt like hours, though it likely could not have been more than one. I knew when we got close because I could feel it, the nasty malignancy of the place that seemed to seep out of the ground. Just as we stepped into the clearing, our torches went out. Ari frowned at his and tried to relight it. I remembered how many times I’d tried to start a fire the night Peter and I had come.

  “Don’t bother,” I said. “Nothing burns here.”

  Ari stared at me and said nothing. But the look on his face was enough to frighten me. Because he suddenly looked unsure of himself. He glanced around, taking in the broken rows of headstones, the decaying vegetation, and the ramshackle, collapsed grave keepers’ house at the edge of the clearing.

  “Noon, something’s wrong.”

  “I know,” I said, turning toward the house. But Ari grabbed my arm.

  “Nothing burns here? Does our magic even work here?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, staring into his eyes. Thankfully, his uncertainty melted into a mask of something I’d never seen. As I looked at him, I felt like I was looking in a mirror. Battle rage, I thought. That’s what I’m seeing; that’s what I’m feeling.

  Fear and ferocity coursed through my veins in equal parts. “If our magic doesn’t work here, neither does hers,” I said, reaching for a sharp stick.

  As we approached the house, I grew uneasy. I was well aware of the toxic effect of my surroundings. But this other thing I sensed was some niggling detail in my own subconscious. I ignored the feeling though. I didn’t want any distractions. I concentrated on opening my signature as wide as possible so I could sense any demons who might be hiding. Ari’s signature bumped up against mine, boiling hot, like the burning oil medieval Hyrkes had poured down on their enemies.

  We reached the house and Ari went in first.

  The dark was the first thing I noticed. Last time, strikes of lightning had periodically lit up the interior of the house, guiding my way. This time, it was pitch-black and eerily, intensely, silent. The rickety door slammed behind me and I jumped, bumping into Ari’s back. I fumbled in my jacket pocket and pulled out a good old-fashioned electric hand torch. I switched it on and a white circular glow splashed across the floor sending hundreds of little black bugs skittering toward the walls.

  The cold, wet, poisoned feel of the place was just as pronounced as before. We crept along the hallway and I fought the urge to cling to Ari’s shirt. Entering this place purged my battle rage the way influenza flushed the intestines. My middle felt hollow and my limbs shook.

  When we stepped into the back room where the tomb was, I heard breathing, but there was no accompanying demon signature, so I knew we’d found Night and Peter. I waved the torch frantically, splashing light across the piles of books, bells, carvings, and cradles that were still scattered throughout the room. In the corner, opposite the coffin lid, I saw them.

  Peter was bound and gagged but otherwise looked fine. It was relatively easy to subdue one Angel if you caught him by surprise. Night, on the other hand, looked like he’d been tortured. His shirt was gone. Deep welts, oozing gashes, and purpling bruises covered every inch of his chest. His face looked like a g
argoyle’s with fat lips, swollen eyes, and puffy, bloated cheeks. I gave a muffled sob and ran to him, kneeling on the floor in front of him.

  “Night,” I cried, my voice breaking.

  He didn’t respond. I pressed my fingers against his neck and let my torch crash to the floor. Instantly, the light went out. I felt a weak pulse beneath my fingers and shook him, none too gently now that I knew he was alive. If we could get him out and into the woods, Bryony could heal him.

  I heard Ari pick up my fallen light. He shook it as Peter screamed something incomprehensible beneath his gag. My stomach dropped as I felt a familiar signature. Hot pinpricks of pain needled my skin and a hornetlike buzz sounded in my ears. Cold sweat pooled at the base of my spine and, so great was the signature’s psychological effect on me, I swiped at my ear, suddenly scared of what might be swarming in the darkness.

  No. It couldn’t be, I thought.

  I heard Ari smack the torch against his palm. It relit and I turned my head. Sure enough, Nergal stood in the doorway. His standing there made no sense, I thought, unless he was the demon responsible for abducting Night and Peter.

  I reached over and ripped the gag out of Peter’s mouth. Immediately, he started casting a spell but Nergal struck him with an electric bolt of magic before he could complete it. Peter fell to the floor, smoking and stiff.

  “Peter!” I shrieked, dropping to the floor. Beneath me, Peter lay still, his eyes open and unblinking, his fists curled like crow’s feet, his lips frozen in the snarl of his half-cast spell.