Dark Divide: A Cormac and Amelia Story

by Carrie Vaughn

  “No. We need to get the hell out of here. Get back home,” Cormac said. His first job, always, was keeping themselves safe. He was ready to hit the freeway and never come back.

  We can’t do that.

  Whatever this was. . .it wasn’t going to stop. Was Domingo already dead too? Cormac tried to call her again—and couldn’t get signal.

  We help her by stopping this at the source—the cabin. You aren’t one to run. I know you.

  When you have the skills, when you have the tools—you need to use them. His father had taught him that. Should have applied to carpentry, not. . .whatever this was. And his father had died young. “I usually know what I’m up against when I stay to fight.” Whatever this was. . .could they even fight back?

  Sacrifices, Amelia murmured finally, from the back of Cormac’s mind. Thinking out loud, as out loud as she could. He’s making sacrifices.

  “What kind of sacrifices? I don’t get it.”

  A sacrifice presumes that the deaths will end when the perpetrator attains whatever goal is aspired to. But then what is the goal? To feed whatever got fed a hundred and fifty years ago when the Donner Party was stranded here? But what did that accomplish? All those people died, and for what?

  “Fame,” Cormac murmured. “A hundred and fifty years later, we’re still talking about them.”

  He felt Amelia give a frustrated huff, and could picture her brushing the fabric of her skirt in irritation. The wrinkle to her brow, the lines around her mouth. There are easier ways to achieve fame, even as a killer. Jack the Ripper didn’t go through this much trouble.

  “Maybe this isn’t about fame as a killer.”

  That leaves us back where we started. These deaths are sacrifices. They’re fueling something. But what?

  “Do we go back down the mountain to tell someone about Bellamy, or check out the cabin?”

  Cabin. While the scent is fresh.

  So be it then. Report the body later.

  Sometimes Cormac really hated magic.

  Me as well, Amelia said, which surprised him, and she explained. It never occurred to me to use magic to hurt anyone. I only observed so many inexplicable details in the world, and I wanted to know more. I wanted knowledge. And yes, power. But I hoarded my power like treasure. I didn’t have a purpose for it. Not like this. Any purpose that could be derived from this must be terrible. We are moving toward a very dark place, Cormac.

  Wasn’t the first time. They were better equipped than most to go there. “So let’s do it,” he muttered.

  What made it hard, they weren’t looking for an assailant, an artifact, a thing. A target he could hunt and kill. Instead, they were looking for a curse, a black hole, a free-floating area of ill intent. Invisible, deadly, that also seemed to have intent and a vast capacity for evil. This force wanted to kill painfully. Vampirically, almost. Not consuming blood or energy or spirit, but the basic physicality necessary for life. It was vicious in a way that most people wouldn’t think of. Not even someone like Cormac. There were faster, nastier ways of killing.

  If only they could set out a net to catch the thing, like a bird.

  The gate at the bottom of the drive was closed. Holding his penlight in his teeth, Cormac picked the lock quick enough. Slower than he wanted, though. He forced himself to keep calm, keep breathing steady. He might not have had his guns, but this was a hunt just the same. Like his usual prey from the old days, the vampires and werewolves and so on, this target was hunting him, too. He just had to get there first. Easy.

  Finally, the gate swung open. He returned to the Jeep and raced up the hill to Weber’s cabin. A half-moon didn’t do anything to make the forest any clearer. Looking up through the treetops, stars blazed.

  He reached the clearing, which this time of night was stark and full of shadows. The cabin lurked, the pair of windows somehow darker than everything around them, something out of a goddamn horror movie. Striding toward the front door, Cormac reached into his pocket for one of the charms Amelia had him put there, a glass Turkish eye the size of a quarter. Not that it would help, but it was something to do.

  At the steps up to the porch, he stopped.

  What is it?

  He simply nodded at the piece of rib bone sitting there. He’d have to walk right past it to get inside.

  Two things, she demanded. A protective circle, and alarms. It’s coming, we’ll know when it gets here.

  He got to work, quick and calm.

  Pouring from a bag of salt, he made a circle some twelve feet in diameter. At the four cardinal points Amelia set a new alarm spell, string and paper resting on the ground. He kept the torn pieces in his hand. If any magic passed this way, they’d know. In the center she had him build a fire, but not light it. He set out a bundle of sage, a candle, a knife. He and Amelia weren’t quite sure what they were up against. Something that killed with malice. But they would be ready.

  “Now what?”

  Patience, Amelia said. We just have to be patient.

  He sat on the ground in the center of the circle, to keep watch on the trap they’d set. The summer night was crisp. No breeze touched the air.

  He scratched his jaw, which was going past feeling like sandpaper into actual beard territory. Waited. This was so like a hunt it was almost comforting. Up at dawn, waiting for a bull elk to walk into his sights. Time seemed to freeze in those moments. He closed his eyes, just for a moment.

  Cormac, light the fire. Light it, now!

  He smelled burning and tried to swat it away, as if it was part of a dream, as if he was still asleep. He didn’t think he’d been asleep for that long, but a chill had settled over the forest. He shivered.

  Cormac!

  The scraps of paper from the magical trigger had turned to ash. They’d been on the ground in front of him; a wisp of smoke still lingered. He was supposed to be watching them. He looked around—which trigger had been sprung? Which direction was the danger coming from?

  All of them at once. All four scraps had burned simultaneously. The danger was here, and everywhere. He felt strangely leaden.

  This is it! Cormac, it’s here! The curse is here!

  The circle of protection hadn’t worked because it was already here; they’d locked it in with them. He couldn’t stand up. He knew that he ought to. He was sure he needed to stand, right now.

  Cormac!

  He remained rooted to the ground, nerveless. “I can’t move,” he murmured, staring at his legs like they belonged to someone else. Fear blasted through him—Amelia’s fear, a panic rooted in the back of his mind. He’d never felt fear like this from her. Something was very wrong.

  When was the last time you ate?

  Dinner, a fast-food burger before going back to the motel. His stomach cramped, far beyond hungry. He was starving.

  Don’t you have a. . .a. . .what is it, a power bar in your shirt pocket? Some jerky? You always carry around a bit of jerky. Eat it. Just a bite.

  “I can’t.” He winced, knowing he should be angry, unable to find the energy for it. Well, at least he was right—whatever had gotten Weber and Bellamy was right here. Maybe it’d been here the whole time. They’d finally managed to draw its attention.

  Cormac, did you hear that?

  He listened. Held his breath to hear better, and there it was. Not a voice, this was only a suggestion. A thought on the air, directed at him. He’d probably heard it before, but not with his conscious mind. Now, he listened hard and heard the words.

  What’s it saying? What’s it telling you?

  “It’s telling me to eat.”

  But it wants you to starve—

  “No. This is about torture. It wants me to eat.”

  He picked up the pocketknife, the ritual blade she’d had him set by the unlit fire. Yes, for this, the curse let him have free rein. No trouble at all moving for this.

  He stabbed the knife into the ground next to him. His hand was shaking. He was gritting his teeth hard, and forced himself to unclench hi
s jaw.

  Cormac. She was worried, with a sharp edge to her presence. Please, Cormac. What is this?

  He looked at the knife. He looked at his thigh, the thick, fleshy stretch of muscle laid out just under the fabric of his jeans, just below the skin. Fresh, bloody meat.

  Understanding dawned on them both.

  All Cormac had to do was cut into himself. Then he could eat.

  Amelia could do nothing.

  The cruelty of the spell was breathtaking. No, upon consideration, much crueler tortures were possible—she could even think of some herself involving children, involving long roads of pain that only ended in death. Involving the kind of hopelessness that did not end in death at all.

  This spell had an end to it, a decisive end that she preferred not to think of. The cruelty of this spell was obsessive—taking the fascinating horrors of the Donner story and turning them upon the victim. Amelia had no body. She was unaffected by the curse that had trapped Cormac, pinning him to the ground and sapping from him his will.

  She had to do something, but she didn’t know what. She wanted to reach out, grab Cormac’s collar, shake him until his teeth rattled. She couldn’t. She couldn’t even scream in his ear, because he was drifting away. They were locked together in the same damned brain, and she could feel him losing focus as his energy faded. As he starved, the hunger of weeks compressed into moments. The pain gnawed at him; she watched from a small distance, as if behind glass.

  If he died, she would lose her anchor to the world. She would be helpless, and the last part of her still living would dissipate.

  This was magic. She knew magic, knew a thousand spells and the arcane lore that crafted them. She could solve this, counter it in a way that Weber and Bellamy couldn’t have hoped to. God, they must have been terrified, having no way to understand what was happening, thinking the curse of this place must truly be striking them down—

  She pulled her thoughts back to the problem at hand. This was not natural, clearly. It was magic. So, what was the magic driving this? What was the power that had invaded their circle and struck Cormac down with so little warning?

  A trap. It had waited for a target, then sprang to catch it, without mercy. If this had been old—some spell or curse from the previous century, some leftover magic, there would have been some warning. Some randomness. This was new, and malicious. And very likely the kind of trap that the more one struggled against it, the tighter it held.

  They needed some kind of protection, and they needed to draw the perpetrator—the maker of this trap—into the open. Confront the person, turn the spell back somehow. She had charms—she was constantly filling Cormac’s pockets with charms and odds and ends, anything that might be useful, a magician’s toolkit. If she could remember what he had there, cast her own magic, hope it was strong enough—

  And keep Cormac alive. This was all on her now.

  This was what Weber and Bellamy had both faced. Lying paralyzed, one option open before them as they watched the skin draw back from their bones and felt their stomachs contract, the hunger of weeks collapsing into hours. All they had to do was eat the one unthinkable meal. Bellamy had dropped his knife rather than give in. Weber, the same. Neither one of them could do it. So, did that make them courageous, or cowardly?

  “I could do it.” He wasn’t weak. He could do whatever he needed to survive. No one would blame him.

  You will not, Amelia declared.

  “I wouldn’t even die. Just a little piece. I could survive. Tell me why I shouldn’t.”

  It’s not civilized. Her English accent was so prim, so offended, he had to chuckle. Right, then. He couldn’t do it because the prim English lady said not to.

  You are very difficult.

  His hands looked different. Thinner, more gaunt. The bones seemed more defined. He touched his face—did his cheekbones seem more pronounced? His life was draining away physically as weight vanished from him in defiance of all the laws of physics.

  No you will not. You will not starve, I forbid it.

  “I’m trying not to,” he murmured.

  He was starving; she wasn’t. Would her spirit survive without a body, the way it had back in prison for a hundred years? Would she be able to find another body out here? Or would Donner Pass really be haunted now?

  We must fight. It’s simple, really.

  “Amelia. . . .”

  Annie Domingo. Was she going through this now, right this minute? Had Peterson got her, too? Maybe there was still time. . . .

  That’s right. We must fight so we can save Annie. There’s a spell. You hardly have to move, even.

  “Or I could cut. Just a little. Then this all goes away.” A piece off the tip of his finger. He wouldn’t even miss it, and there’d be enough meat in that one bite, a bit of fat and enough blood to suck on to satisfy the monster—

  Cormac! She had to shout at him.

  He shook his head to clear his mind. He wasn’t thinking straight, he knew he wasn’t. He should throw the knife away, like Weber and Bellamy had. Or finally use it to cut, maybe a strip off the curved muscle of his forearm. . . .

  No. Those two men had been stronger, to refuse that voice.

  I daren’t ask you for a drop of blood, you’re liable to slice a whole limb off, the state you’re in.

  “Blood sacrifice. That’s what you said, what all this is—someone needs sacrifices, that’s why Weber died, why Bellamy died—”

  Yes. And if there is a sacrifice, there is someone performing the sacrifice. Someone who wants something.

  “I’ve never been this weak.” He was lightheaded. His energy had fled, and his body was throbbing. It wasn’t pain so much as. . .need.

  I know you haven’t. But so much of your strength is in your mind, my dear, we simply have to use it. Ignore the rest. Can you do that?

  It was like he had Mary Poppins in his head urging him on. How could he say no? “Yes.”

  I’ll help. Let me in, let me have your body so I can—

  “No—you take over, you’ll be stuck too. We’ve done this enough, you can tell me what to do. But you need to stay safe.”

  As long as you’re like this I am not safe.

  “Amelia. Please. You don’t want to feel what I’m feeling. Just tell me what to do.”

  How was it he imagined her taking a deep breath? Brushing her hands and rolling back her shoulders like she was about to push a boulder up a hill? She had no body. But she was as real and solid as if she stood next to him. He could almost feel her holding his hands, gazing into his eyes.

  Show me what’s in your pockets.

  The action seemed to take a very long time, far longer than it would have under normal circumstances. Every inch of movement seemed to require a renewed force of will. Move hand to jacket pocket. Put hand in pocket. Rest. Grab items, which amounted to simply closing his hand and keeping hold of what he could. Drop hand to his side, letting items spill. Repeat until he had everything out. Then on to the next pocket. No wonder the other victims hadn’t called for help.

  Amelia was thinking faster than he was—her mind wasn’t clouded. She surveyed the pockets’ contents as he laid them out, recognizing them even in the near dark. His phone—drained and dead, of course. A bent nail. Matches. A couple of chunks of quartz. Black string, red string. A pillbox filled with dried clover. Paperclips. Feathers.

  Black string, she said. Wrap it around your right forefinger. I’ll say the spell.

  He focused on her words, but they were in another language, Latin maybe, so instead he let the sound of her voice flow through him and concentrated on the string, clasping it with his thumb and clumsily twisting his hand until the string looped around a couple of times. He didn’t have the energy for more, but when he finished, so did the words, and he could feel power rise up, a magical energy that hadn’t existed before, created by her words and securing him like a brace.

  He took a deep breath—he was able to take a deep breath. He didn’t feel particularly
stronger, but life had stopped draining from him. The spell was an anchor. Whatever happened next, his life would hold here for a little while. She’d bought some time.

  Next, we draw out the killer.

  This would be a summoning, she explained. Not traditional demonic summoning like in the stories. Rather, this would be like a fire alarm, a strobe light—a disruption, to force the target to look over. Shake the spiderweb to see what came out of hiding.

  Cormac didn’t much like that metaphor. He was already caught—what was he supposed to do, when the spider approached?

  Smash it, Amelia declared.

  “I hope this works,” he murmured.

  So do I.

  She didn’t sound as sure as he would have liked.

  Next, they’d be writing in the dirt, symbols and signs, messages sent to the ether. She wanted to use a stick to write; he didn’t have the strength or attention to look for one. Wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold onto it. He could use his finger just as well. Put whatever strength he had left into the spell.

  I wish you’d let me do this.

  “No. I need you in reserve.”

  If you’re trying to spare me pain—

  That was it exactly. No reason both of them had to suffer.

  Cormac—

  “Show me what to write.”

  He closed his eyes to better focus on her presence, her disembodied voice calling to him. He didn’t sink all the way into their meadow, the space of their shared consciousness. But he could see what she wanted him to see, the patterns she needed written. Methodically, he scratched them into the dirt beside him. First left, then right. Then another, and another. She spoke a simple phrase with Cormac’s voice:

  “Acclare! Acclare te ipsum!”

  Silence returned. The nighttime forest was more still and ominous than a graveyard. Easy to remember, how many people had died just a few miles from here, and how horribly.

  “What now?” he said.

  A beam of light panned through the trees. A flashlight, accompanied by soft footsteps on the earth. The sudden motion was shocking, a jolt to his system that was almost painful. His heart raced, and it didn’t have the energy to work so hard. He looked, winced, figured out that someone was approaching, searching for the exact spot where he sat. Part of him grew hopeful, ready to call out for rescue. But he knew—this wasn’t rescue. This was a man come to see how his sacrifice was progressing. Maybe even alerted because things weren’t going the way they should. Someone had gummed up the works.