Darkness Brutal (The Dark Cycle Book 1)

by Rachel A. Marks

  “You’re right—I don’t understand why I have to bone some girl for power! So explain it to me, for fuck’s sake.”

  “You have to finish this. Your power must be awakened. It’s the most important thing—more important than even my life.” He rests a hand on my chest as if trying to calm me down. I smack it away, but he keeps talking. “You won’t be able to save them if you don’t follow this through. Everything will be lost—all the bright sparks in this world, the love, the thin connection humanity feels to the Creator. It’ll all slip away. So much depends on that link. Without it, life will disappear from this earth forever.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I’m so tired of all the riddles.

  “You know now that you’re important, but you don’t know why.” He points behind us, to the office where the others are gathered, and whispers, “They are why, Aidan. There aren’t many of them left, souls that see. There are barely a hundred born in a generation. They’re Lights—beacons that shine the truth of things to the souls that are blind to it. And there are more out there, in the streets, huddled in dark corners, lost, young people who have spiritual talents—like Jax and Connor and Holly. These gifted souls allow humanity to peek into the worlds outside their own, keeping them linked to Life and Love in more ways, deeper ways, than what they can see and touch and taste alone. All the people in this house, all the ones out there that we haven’t found yet, they play a vital role. Their loss will be the destruction of humanity. Your birth changed the balance and put them in greater danger, but you also have the power to save them all.”

  “Save them from what?” Humanity is going to be destroyed if I don’t play his game?

  “Save them from the demons looking to destroy them. There’s a reason these young people’s lives were hell on earth before they got to me—they’ve been chased down like dogs by darkness their whole lives because the demon kings know they need to kill the Light if they want to win.”

  He studies my face like he’s searching for some spark of understanding in me. He’s not going to find it.

  “Aidan, the future has changed. The demons have seen the same thing Darius’s council saw in the prophecies. They know that you’ll cut their rule short and that the power center has shifted strongly against them. They will do everything they can to remedy that, even if it means killing every last young person in the city—in every city. Just in case they have the ability to see.”

  “And I’m supposed to save them. Suddenly it’s all up to me?”

  “It’s always been up to you! Why do you think I didn’t kill you when I found you? I realized there was more at stake than my fellow council members wanted to see. They only saw their own power waning with your arrival, but they didn’t see the cost that would have to be paid to regain it. I see that cost. I look it in the eye every time I take one of these young people under my wing, these Lights. And there are so few of them left.”

  I shake my head. It’s all too much to take in right now. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. I have other things I’m responsible for.” This can’t be about saving anyone but Ava.

  “You must believe me. They need you. We all do.” He pauses and says in a quiet voice, “Rebecca is one of the Lights as well.”

  My skin prickles.

  . . . The Light he found will lead him; its wings sit beneath the heart . . .

  “Rebecca?” She’s the one my mom told Ava about? But Kara is a Light too by Sid’s definition—kids who can feel things beyond the physical world. And she has the violets and lilies; she’s the one I’m feeling led to. Rebecca is only a distraction, she—

  But then I realize . . . wings beneath the heart. Rebecca has wings. She has a butterfly tattoo on her ribs. I saw it the morning I brought her home, after my shower.

  How could I have missed the connection? Kara and her violets and lilies, Rebecca and her butterfly wings. Two girls, not one. The Light he found will lead him; its wings sit beneath the heart. But he must touch the violets and lilies to find surrender, to find his hidden blood.

  Sid is oblivious to my revelation as he rambles on. “Yes, Rebecca is one of the strongest of the Lights that Fate brought before you. Then you came here and began bonding with these new Lights as well, although most of the kids in the house don’t have the strength of her gift. I didn’t believe it until I saw it. What she’ll soon be able to do is unique.”

  I’m not sure what he means. I glance at Kara, who’s studying her shoes intently, wondering why Sid has left her out of the discussion.

  Sid notices me looking at her and adds, “Kara is also a part of this. But she wasn’t born with her talents. Her gift was created with magic. It makes no real difference in the scheme of things; they will all eventually help you, each one completing you in one way or another. They are very important, Aidan, and it’s your job to protect them, to lead them. They have to be close to you if they’re going to stay safe.”

  I frown at him. “But you acted like you didn’t want Rebecca to get mixed up in our lives. You said she was supposed to go home today. And now you’re telling me it’s vital that I stay close to her?”

  “I was wrong when I said that. I wasn’t aware that she was a Light until I did the spell on her. I was going to tell you, but things became . . . unhinged. In any case, you could never have left her. Once you’re linked with a Light, they’ll likely remain with you out of innate loyalty. A handful of them may have dreamed of you for years.”

  My world tilts again. The drawing Rebecca showed me, the way she talked about her angel . . .

  Holly pokes her head out of the office door and interrupts. “Hey, what’s the sitch? Is this meeting the haps or what?”

  “In a moment, Holly, please,” Sid says, sounding distraught.

  Holly seems to get the message. She disappears back into the office, shutting the door.

  Sid continues. “The kids in this house, they’re your army, Aidan, your main weapon against the demons. They’re how you’ll open humanity’s eyes to the truth.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “How am I supposed to lead a bunch of kids when I barely know what I’m doing myself?”

  “For now, your powers enable you to find the Beacons, or Lights, and draw them to you.” He swallows. “Eventually your powers, harnessed with theirs, will enable you to kill the demons.”

  I bark out a laugh. “Kill?” Now I know he’s completely off his meds.

  “Demons.”

  I shake my head. “No. You’re crazy. Demons can’t be killed.” This I know. This I wished a million times wasn’t true. But you can’t kill something that’s not flesh and blood. You can’t kill a spirit.

  “In Griffith Park, Aidan. Remember what happened? I saw it with my own eyes. You were full of light, like it was coming from your eyes, your skin. It’s your power starting to spill out. It’s growing in you as your mark grows. Why else would you be able to touch them?”

  “This is insane.”

  “You have to see he’s telling the truth, Aidan,” Kara says.

  I look at her, trying to find something in her eyes I can grab hold of. It’s all too much. A father from another time. My ability to touch demons. A group of kids that will be my army. My army?

  “You don’t belong here, Aidan,” Sid says. “You never should have been born. You cross all boundaries of nature and spirit. Yet here you are. Something—someone—watching over all of Creation doesn’t want it all to end in blood and torment. Maybe that someone made sure the mistake of your birth happened in a way that most wouldn’t notice until all the prophecies had changed. If you hadn’t been born, maybe the end of the world would’ve been very different. But it’s too late for that now. You have to follow this through. Everything depends on it. Everything.”

  “So Rebecca is linked to me, then.” It’s a statement, a confirmation of what she said in the hall last nigh
t, of what my mom said in the dream to Ava.

  “She was meant to meet you,” Sid says. “And she’s very important—the first of the Lights to find you. Why do you think the demon was working so hard on her? But until you have full use of your power, you’re very vulnerable—which means they are, too. If the demons discover that they can physically harm you without being on this plane, you’ll be sliced to bits in seconds.”

  “But . . . what does it all mean?” I ask.

  “She and the others have to stay near you, under your protection,” Sid says. “It’s why I started this house. A place had to be made ready for you and your soldiers.”

  I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. “You couldn’t have told me all this yesterday when you spilled the beans about my dad being some time-traveling biblical character?”

  “You don’t have to like the truth,” he says, “but you do need to find a way to believe it. It’s vital that you complete your journey, that you finish this with Kara, that you open yourself up and awaken your powers fully. You won’t be safe—no one you care about will be safe—until you do.”

  I glance at Kara. “It’s not happening.” Even though just looking at her makes me want to touch her again. It doesn’t matter—I can’t hurt her like that.

  Sid releases a long sigh. “Once you have time to consider what I’ve said, I think you’ll see I’m right. You’ll see there’s no other way.”

  Mom’s standing on the outside rim of the circle, studying what she’s drawn on the floor, checking her work, the names of angels written in symbols that only I seem to understand. There’s white dust on her shirt, on her nose. The chalk stick that she used to draw the summoning circle is in her right hand; her grimoire is opened in the other. She looks back and forth between the floor and the book.

  I need to go into the room to put Ava into her playpen, but I don’t want to interrupt. I’m afraid of the panic I see in Mom’s eyes when her concentration is cracked, like whatever connection she’s making is drifting away like smoke. But I feed Ava, feed myself. I wash her tiny cheeks and hands. Put her in her bear jammies. Now she stands beside me on her tiny three-year-old legs, gripping two of my fingers.

  I dare a whisper. “Mom?”

  The chalk in her hand cracks as she breaks focus.

  I taste dust on my tongue, dry and bitter. “Can I put her in her playpen now?”

  Mom looks up, eyes far off. “It’s not time yet. Not time!” She nearly screams when she says it. Tears spill down her cheeks. “They tricked me. How could I let this happen?”

  My chest clenches at the panic pouring out of her in frantic waves. Ava grips my fingers tighter, and a tiny whimper escapes her.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” I say, even though I’m not sure it’s true. But I want it to be.

  She sees me finally, eyes clearing of fog. “Don’t forget, Aidan. Never trust your heart.”

  And then she kneels and draws a new symbol in the four corners of the circle. She’s mumbling Latin, something about “one for another” and “binding light.” She’s slipped away again, gone back to her magic, her need to make something right, searching for something I know she’ll never find.

  I look again at the circle and see a flash of blood, of pale skin, eyes wide to another world. Mom’s eyes. Mom’s blood. Inside the chalk circle.

  I walk past her into the room to tuck Ava in for her birthday night.

  The last night.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Rebecca giggles and slaps another ace down in the middle of my bed. “You lose!” She high-fives Ava, who’s sitting beside her, and they both laugh.

  I feign frustration, but I’m actually floored to have spent the last day doing totally normal and mundane things. Rebecca and Ava and I have happily spent the last three hours playing a game of rummy. It’s been good to have time with my sister. Without even one discussion of demons or magic or destiny coming up. I can almost feel my feet finding earth again.

  I haven’t slept since Sid unloaded on me yesterday about my Great and Terrible Duty. Nothing in me is still enough to sleep.

  I need to get my head straight or it’s going to explode. I need to decide what to do about my great-grandmother. There are a lot of reasons in front of me now to confront that part of my life. And only one reason not to.

  Fear.

  I’m terrified of what I’ll find. And I have no idea why.

  I need to get over it, though. One of the top reasons for me to meet this woman is for Ava. To find out anything I can that might help me protect her. I can worry about saving Earth after she turns twelve tomorrow.

  Ava gathers the cards off the bed and starts shuffling them again. “Five card draw this time.”

  “No, let’s play war,” I say.

  Ava rolls her eyes. “You always wanna play that. Anyway, we don’t have enough cards.”

  Rebecca tosses me a look that says, Little sisters are such a pain, aren’t they?

  She has no idea.

  “How about go fish?” Rebecca asks.

  “Your wish is my command, my sweet.” I wink at her.

  She blushes, and I instantly regret being flirty. I didn’t mean it in any way other than being playful, but I can tell Rebecca’s caught off guard—she’s biting her bottom lip and turning girly all of a sudden.

  I look away, but study her out of the corner of my eye as she watches Ava shuffle the cards. Her hair is pulled back into a knot on top of her head, her skin is pale and soft, and the freckles across her cheeks stand out from her lack of makeup. Her eyes have seemed less sad the last day or two, especially since Sid told her she could stay a little longer. I wish I could say I wasn’t attracted to her, that I didn’t want to touch her jaw and kiss her neck—

  I clear my throat, trying to distract myself from my train of thought. She’s a girl, she’s beautiful. Of course I’m attracted to her. I’d have to be blind not to be. But there’s something else. Maybe connected to what Sid was talking about—that she’s one of these Lights and I’m linked to her. Because I don’t just feel attracted to her, I feel protective, responsible. And I barely know her. What am I supposed to do with that?

  I pick up the hand Ava dealt me, and there’s a knock on the door.

  “Aidan,” Kara says through the wood. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Hold on,” I say.

  “Just meet me in my room when you’re done,” she says.

  “Yeah, sure.” I can’t look at Rebecca.

  Ava glances over at Rebecca and then at me. “Kara’s going to have to wait her turn.”

  I give her a look over the top of my cards, and she gives me an eye roll back.

  We play one round of go fish, but none of us are feeling it anymore.

  One more day keeps rattling through my head. Ava will turn twelve tomorrow.

  One more day.

  “What now?” I ask as Kara opens her door.

  “Hello to you too, oh chipper one.”

  I walk past her and fall back onto the bed. “Where are my manners? I forgot, I should be thrilled my world is spinning off its axis.”

  She comes over to lean on the wall next to me. The Gone With The Wind poster we yanked off the wall in our frenzy to get at each other the night of the party is fixed and pinned back up.

  She fiddles with the taped edge next to her hip. “Sid thought we should go meet your great-grandma today. With or without you. I just wanted to give you a heads-up. We’re leaving in an hour to tell the old lady that we can maybe help her with her TV thing.”

  “Seriously? He’s just going to butt into this now?”

  “It’s Sid,” she says with a shrug, like I’ll understand. And I do. It’s silent for a long moment as she fiddles with the corner of the movie poster some more, like she’s not sure what to say. Then she adds, “I just think . . . if it was me, I’d be ex
cited to meet someone connected to me. Think how many questions she could answer for you. Don’t you have questions about your mom? Sid said she died when you were young, a robbery gone bad or something.” Her voice turns quiet at the last bit, fading off.

  I grip the mattress. The air goes cold around us as the vision of my mother rises . . . body sprawled in her casting circle, thin white gown twisted around her middle, a gaping hole in her chest. Her eyes stare off into nothing, her mouth open in a frozen gasp of terror . . .

  “I’m sorry,” Kara whispers, bringing me back.

  I shiver and blink away the memory. I wish I could turn my heart to stone to keep from feeling it all—the endless ache from seeing her like that throbs in me like a gaping wound.

  “I don’t know why I said that,” she says.

  I shake my head. “Don’t worry about it.” I stand and begin pacing, and then I confess, “I’m just afraid. I’ve always been afraid to know about my family.”

  “Why?”

  “You know what I am, the things I can do, how scary it all is.”

  She nods slowly.

  “That’s the good part of my past. That’s where it actually makes sense.”

  I have no idea why I’m telling her this—the words I never spoke aloud before, the door I’ve never opened for anyone: “She was a witch, my mom. A mess. I watched her all the time doing spells, talking to demons, calling them to her. I don’t want to understand that—I don’t want to dig deeper. The idea is actually terrifying me right now.” I look into her eyes, and the mark on my arm begins to pulse with a dull ache. “My mom only brought pain to my life, Kara. Her weakness took away everything I cared about. What’ll happen if I follow her down that rabbit hole?”

  Her hand moves to mine, and she takes it with her delicate fingers. I sense the strange connection, that yearning where my skin seeks her out. All of it. And I suddenly feel myself balance inside.

  “You deserve the truth, Aidan. You deserve a family. Love. And isn’t there a chance that maybe you’ll find salvation? Something good in it all?”