Darkness Brutal (The Dark Cycle Book 1)

by Rachel A. Marks

  Sid is sitting across from me. I didn’t even notice him come back. He’s holding the alabaster box in his lap.

  He motions for me to set the dagger back inside. I hesitate for a second and then rest the blade in its casket.

  As soon as I remove my fingers, it shifts, becoming a feather again. There are specks of blood on it from where my hand gripped the hilt.

  “It’s meant to become whatever you need at the time that you need it.” He holds out the lid to me. “You have to be the one to replace the cover. And once you do, you won’t be able to remove it again until you require the object’s help.”

  I can’t take the lid from him. I can’t think about anything he’s saying. His words gather like fog in my head.

  I look back at Ava. “I didn’t save her.”

  He drops his hand. “But the demon didn’t get her, Aidan. It didn’t finish its task.”

  “To awaken her.”

  “She’s safe where she is.”

  I shake my head. “You can’t know that.”

  “Her soul is safe. She hasn’t chosen darkness yet. There’s still a chance you can save her.”

  “How?”

  He rests his hand on my shoulder. “We’ll find a way. I promise.” He holds out the alabaster lid again. “I’m here for you. Whatever you need from me, I’ll give it. I swear to serve you as I did your father.”

  I take the lid from him this time. “How do you know all this stuff about the box?”

  “Hanna explained.”

  “This dagger helped me kill a demon in spirit form,” I say.

  “No, it was your mark that allowed that. You could’ve used any blade—well, almost any blade. It should be gold or iron to do the job effectively.”

  “The dagger isn’t special?”

  “No, Aidan,” he says. “You are.”

  “I can breathe underwater,” I blurt out, the memory flashing back.

  He nods. “Yes, that makes sense.”

  “How exactly does it make sense? How does any of this make sense?”

  “Well, you’ve been given your resurrection form. It’s going to be more . . . resilient.”

  “What, I’m immortal now or something?”

  “No, no. Merely more in tune with nature—like Adam was before death was born.”

  “I thought you didn’t know everything about this after-the-awakening stuff.”

  He pulls a book from the folds of his coat and sets it between us, beside the open alabaster box. “Hanna found me and told me what I needed to do to help you. Eric left you his journal until he could return. He told Hanna she was meant to give it to you once you were able to face your choice. I assume that’s occurred.”

  Yes. My choice. I chose to take Ava’s place, but my mother’s spirit did it instead. Once again she sacrificed herself for us.

  I set the lid on the box. It settles with a sharp chink, locking into place.

  We sit there like that for a while, just staring at the ground. At the stone box. The book left behind by Eric. And I silently swear to follow this calling. This thing that I am now. I will open myself up to it and accept it. Because what else do I have now?

  Except hope.

  FIFTY-TWO

  I stand on the cliff and watch the waves below as they crash against the rocks and chase their way up the distant beach, toward the cave. The swath of green is gone now, sunk back into the sand as if it never was, and the mysterious tug from before is more distant, like it’s satisfied for now.

  The damp air sticks to my skin in a coating of salt and sea. I fold my arms across my chest for warmth. A gull cries in the distance. Or maybe that’s Mrs. O’Linn hollering from the house behind me that I need to come in for coffee or tea or stale cookies. I think the woman is trying to drown me in Irish hospitality.

  She still doesn’t know who I am. At least I don’t think she does. But by letting her think I’m here to help her with the yard and other things as penance for my odd behavior, she lets me hang out here. This way I can be close to Ava—who Mrs. O’Linn knows nothing about.

  Ava sleeps in the cave. Exactly the same as she was two weeks ago. Not decomposing or waking up. Just . . . still.

  I set her violin beside her, hoping the strings might call to her, a sort of familiarity. I hid her bag with Mr. Ribbons and Fiona’s grimoire in a crevice in the stone wall. Sid did a spell over the spot to make it invisible to human or demon eyes until we can figure things out. It wasn’t an easy spell, and I know it wasn’t natural or right, but I felt no hesitation in letting him do it. I’m ready to do what I have to now in order to protect her. I’ve killed; there’s not much worse than that. And even though Lester’s body is gone now, cremated before the authorities could find him, I can’t just forget. I still have that weight on me, the heavy stain of murder.

  I’ve been reading through Eric’s journal to try and find answers, to find a way to be free, to wake Ava; half of it is a jumbled mess of things I barely understand. The other half of the thing is unintelligible.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket, interrupting my thoughts. I check to see who it is, and my heart lightens at the picture on the screen: Rebecca crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out at the camera. I tap the answer button. “Hey, you,” I say. “How was France?”

  “Ireland, silly,” she says. Her father never left her side while she was in the hospital. After agreeing to put her in counseling, he decided they needed a vacation together, so he took ten days off and whisked her away to wherever she wanted to go. She sent me postcards of castles and texted lots of pictures of sheep and of old men smoking pipes with captions like “Acting the maggot,” and “On a pig’s back?”

  “Ireland, France, it’s all Greek to me,” I say.

  “Don’t let the folk of Erin hear you say that. Them’s fightin’ words.”

  “Glad you’re home safe.” I smile. I am glad—it feels like I can finally set down one of these bags of rocks I’ve been carrying around.

  “Well, Dad says I get to see friends now, and I pick you!”

  “I’m weeding a garden at the moment. You’re free to come join in the fun.”

  “Uh, no thanks. Just got my nails done, and I’m back to school tomorrow. Have to keep up appearances.” She giggles, but I wonder how that’ll go. Her friends aren’t the most sensitive humans. “But I have the car today. Maybe coffee later?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “And, um,” she pauses, like she’s not sure how to say something. “Maybe it could just be you.”

  She means no Kara. “Sure.” I still haven’t told Rebecca about my feelings for Kara or about my powers waking up. It’s not the first thing you tell someone when they come out of the hospital: Oh, by the way, I sort of bonded permanently with someone else. But then maybe she’s over it. It’s not like there are no guys in Ireland. And they have those accents that girls melt over. “You can tell me all about the bangers and mash.”

  She laughs again, and we talk for another few seconds, bantering back and forth about nothing. I know Sid was right. She’s connected to me—she’s a part of everything, a Light, like my mom said. It’s becoming clearer whenever we talk. I feel our link now, like a string tied to both of our wrists. The others are linked to me as well. They don’t know it—they sure don’t act like it—but the thing that urges me to walk the halls at night, to double-check the wards on the entrances, and to keep track of where everyone is in the house, all this makes it clear to me that I’m settling into something. Something larger than myself.

  “Boy!” Mrs. O’Linn barks from the house, interrupting the story I’m telling Rebecca about the potato bug I found and put in Jax’s backpack.

  “I gotta go,” I say. “Duty calls.”

  I hang up and yell, “Yeah?” toward the house where I know my great-grandmother is waiting.

  �
��The unwashed masses have descended!” she yells, sounding perturbed. “Please tell these foolish children to leave! I told you they were not welcome.”

  I bite back a smile and move to save her from the “uncultured vultures,” as she calls them.

  When I come around a large hydrangea bush, I’m tackled by a small form. “Hey, sexy,” Kara says with a giggle at the surprised look on my face.

  She pushes me back into the bushes.

  “Kara,” I say, trying to put a warning in my voice. But secretly I’m glad when she ignores it.

  She leans into me, attacking me with a kiss. Her hands grip my shirt, holding me close. It’s the only thing keeping me upright as my body responds to hers.

  She pulls away and smiles at me wickedly. “I just had to get some love in before we were surrounded by morons again.”

  She’s so different than she was when I ran into her at the club, all sorrow and desperation. Now she’s full of light. There’s no more heaviness between us. No more fear. It floated away when I sat beside her hospital bed for three days and nights, holding her hand and reading to her from Great Expectations. Over those hours and days her spirit seemed to open up: a flower bud finally seeing the sun. Even now, as I look at her, I realize the things I felt for her have only grown more complex—the urge to study her, be near her.

  She grins at me. “You look so cute when you’re frowning at me like that.” She tugs on me to follow her through the garden toward the house. “Sid found us a good spec. This one’s got a sexy divorcée and a murder and everything—like an episode of Dallas.”

  “Lovely.”

  “You can be Cagney, and I’ll be Lacey.”

  I laugh. “Were we teleported to the eighties when I wasn’t looking?”

  “If you prefer, I can be Laverne, and you can be Shirley.”

  “Please stop making me a girl. You’re going to have me questioning my manhood.”

  She leans in, pecks me on the cheek, and whispers, “Maybe it’s time we looked into that more,” which makes my face turn hot. Then she pulls me toward the car where the others are waiting, not giving me a chance to make her clarify that statement.

  There’s a loud bang, and Jax bursts through the front door of the house, Mrs. O’Linn squawking after him, whacking his arm with what looks like a TV Guide, saying, “Put that down, you cretin!”

  Jax’s holding a golden statue out to us, like he just found the cup of Christ. “Holy shit! The old bat won an Oscar!”

  Sid shoos him into the car and hands the statue back to Mrs. O’Linn with an apology. We all pile into the Camaro, Connor driving, Kara, Jax, and me in the backseat, Sid sitting shotgun.

  As we pull out onto PCH, I watch the waves rolling up the golden sand of the shoreline. I imagine that I see two figures down there near the rocks, laughing and searching for sea glass. A vision from the past, of my mother and father, maybe?

  Whoever they are, they look happy. I hold tight to the idea, believing I can find a way back to that innocent joy. I settle into the seat, letting this new road take me to my next destination. I feel the future in front of me. And for once I’m not afraid.

  “Because we are not wrestling against basar vadahm (flesh and blood), but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of the choshech (darkness) of the Olam Hazeh (physical world), against the kokhot ruchaniyim ra’im (evil spiritual forces) in Shomayim (The Heavens).”

  ~ Ephesus 6:12 ~

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A book is never created by just one soul, and there is never enough room (or memory) for all the names. But I’ll try my best.

  In the birth of this story, to the souls that were there at the start: Merrie Destefano, Rebecca LuElla Miller, Mike Duran, and Paul Regnier, thank you for not falling out of your chairs at Panera from hysterical laughter on that fateful day when I brought this story idea to you, because it made no sense at all. To my ever-encouraging and talented bitches at LB who kept me going when I wanted to throw in the towel, and to my inspirers at CODEX, for challenging me to reach higher in my craft. To Cheri Williams and Catherine Felt, the most perfect conference roomies and encouragers a gal could ask for. To my bestest friend, and first editor, Cayse Day (you too, Dave!), who read with great enthusiasm when I was ready to give up on this publishing game altogether; you are amaze-ballz! A huge hug to the great Orson Scott Card, who made me see through the words to find the true heart of a story. And to James Scott Bell, who took his personal time to encourage this unknown gal; you are a saint among men.

  I have the best agent in the whole wide world in Rena Rossner. And you wouldn’t be reading this book without her die-hard spirit and her kick-ass battle strategies (not to mention her serious skillz with the red pen). And to the amazing Courtney Miller, who caught the vision of Aidan and his ragtag crew. I am so grateful she’s made this book a reality—an even more shiny one than I imagined—with the awesome team at Amazon Skyscape. And to Marianna Baer, a stunning and thoughtful editor, who challenged me gently and helped make the truth of this tale shine. I am epically grateful for her wisdom and insight.

  To my mom, who put up with me talking endlessly about this tale, and listened even when it made no sense. I can’t thank you enough for all the support, both spiritual and practical, for being patient with my weird brain, and for all the carpool and dinner help—you are Super Grammy!

  And to my kids: you rock #AllTheThings, you fabulous munchkins of mine. You were my first creations, and you will always be my most favorite. Thanks for putting up with Mommy’s crazy all these years. You’ve earned a bazillion trips to Disneyland and ten gagillion Xbox games for your patience.

  But most of all, in this human world where I reside for now, my Joseph will always be the one who holds me together and keeps me sane. Thank you a million times over for twenty years of adventures, and love, and a lifetime more to come.

  And all glory to Him, who holds us, even when we don’t see the hands of grace.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2010 Hannah Marks

  Rachel A. Marks is an award-winning writer, a professional artist, and a cancer survivor. She is the author of the novella Winter Rose, and her art can be found on the covers of several New York Times and USA Today bestselling novels. She lives in Southern California with her husband, four kids, and six rabbits.

  For more information, please visit www.RachelAnneMarks.com.