Cast into Darkness

by Janet Tait

  Kristof took his sunglasses off and laid them on the bench by the mat. Even that small movement hurt. He strode toward Dmitri.

  Dmitri let go of Anton’s arm. The young man groaned and rolled away, giving Kristof a grateful glance. At Kristof’s nod he left, shutting the gym door behind him.

  Kristof circled Dmitri on the mat. “My father just assigned you to me. We have a mission.”

  “That’s funny, Uncle Nico didn’t tell me anything about it.” Dmitri kept pace with Kristof.

  “He didn’t have to. He gives me an order, I give it to you.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “That’s the way it is. If you don’t believe me, you could go ask my father. If you want to bother him.” Kristof watched Dmitri’s face.

  There. Dmitri’s eyes flared, and he stepped in, grabbing for Kristof’s shoulder. He hooked his right foot behind Kristof’s left, trying for a quick leg sweep.

  Kristof drove his left leg into Dmitri’s midsection. He grabbed Dmitri’s gi, then threw him, hard. Dmitri flew backward to the mat. He landed with a thwack. Wasting no time, Kristof knelt on Dmitri’s chest and grabbed his collar, crossing his arms before he applied the necessary pressure for the choke hold.

  Dmitri gasped, his face turning red as he squirmed in Kristof’s grasp. He rolled from side to side, trying to escape. His legs kicked out, one foot striking Kristof in the thigh. Kristof pressed down harder. Finally, spittle flying, Dmitri tapped out.

  Kristof let him up. His hands, his leg, even his arms where he’d pinned Dmitri down, were throbbing. That bout had probably hurt him more than Dmitri. But it was worth it.

  He grabbed a towel from the bench. Wiping the sweat from his face, he watched his cousin.

  Dmitri picked up a water bottle and took a long drink. “You don’t think that settles anything, do you?” Dmitri locked eyes with his cousin. Kristof met his gaze until Dmitri let his eyes drift away and turned on his annoying smirk.

  “We have a mission to complete,” Kristof said. “Until it’s done, we have to work together. We can settle our differences afterward.”

  “Fine. I was getting bored around here anyway.” Dmitri threw himself down on the bench, tossing the water bottle in a corner. “We’re going after the stone?”

  “Yes. How’d you find out about it?”

  “You think you’re Uncle Nico’s favorite, don’t you? Think you can do whatever you want? You slipped up, and you will again. Don’t expect me to show you your weak spots so you can fix them.”

  Damn. He’d have to find out how Dmitri had gotten his information some other way.

  “So what’s the mission?”

  “The Hamiltons have the stone. We’re going to take it from them.”

  “Great.” Dmitri took another swig of his water. “Who do I get to kill?”

  “No one. Papa wants you to do some babysitting. A girl.”

  “Cool. What’s she look like?”

  Kristof took a step forward. “Let me make this clear: Your job is to guard her. She’s not one of your playthings.”

  “What’s she to you?”

  “Nothing. She’s a hostage. If she’s damaged, we don’t get what we want.”

  Dmitri’s eyes searched Kristof’s, hoping, Kristof thought, to find something, anything, to use against him. Kristof stared right back, his expression closed.

  Dmitri stood, towel around his neck. “So what’s the plan?”

  As they left the gym and walked out into the warm sunlight, Kristof glanced over at his cousin. He wasn’t naive enough to believe that beating him in judo meant that Dmitri would cooperate on the mission. There was no way to keep a watch on him during this operation, either. They’d both be on their own. He’d have to trust Dmitri to do his job.

  The thought gave him a sick feeling in his stomach. If he couldn’t control Dmitri, he wasn’t the only one who would suffer. Kate would, as well.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The late-afternoon sun shone through Kate’s bedroom window, and for the first time in days she had a real break. Pulling on her favorite jeans and a white poet’s shirt, she threw her training clothes into the laundry basket. Time to find out how Brian really died. She stuffed Brian’s journal and Grandfather’s watch into her pocket and tossed her keys, with Kris’s conch-shell fob hanging from the chain, in her purse.

  And she knew just the person to help her: Dylan Pearce. Maybe he’d found something out about the stone by now—something he’d be willing to share. She’d texted him and arranged to meet at a little café in Paumanok. Except for her time out with Kris the other night, she’d been grounded on the estate ever since Brian’s death. Stir crazy didn’t even begin to describe how she felt.

  She rummaged through the closet, pulling out a pair of white flats, then tossing them back on the floor. Surely a brief trip into Paumanok wouldn’t be dangerous. Dad pretty much owned the place. She should tell Victor about her trip but…

  Shoes, shoes, what to pick…the red sandals. Perfect.

  Better to ask for forgiveness than permission. No reason to give Victor the chance to exercise his apparent veto power over her life.

  But when she found Dylan standing by her car, one look at his face shot her plans to hell. Tension shone through his tight eyes, his scrunched-up lips, the way he straightened his glasses with a firm push on the wire bridge.

  “It isn’t safe for you to go into town,” he said. “Victor mentioned the attack against you. He said there’s a security lockdown.”

  Damn Victor’s paranoia. “We’ll be safe enough in Paumanok. No one would do anything there.”

  “Perhaps not, but rules are rules.”

  She stopped, all the desperation of days spent grounded shining from her face. “Please. Anywhere but here.”

  His eyes softened, and he nodded. “We can talk at the Hamilton offices in DC. The security grid will protect us there.”

  “But won’t my dad see us? Or Victor?” She followed him out of the garage, into the kitchen, and down the hall to the outgoing teleport pattern, the marble tile foyer next to the staircase.

  “It doesn’t matter if they do. Your uncle gave me an assignment—”

  “Investigating the stone?” She grasped Dylan’s arm as he touched a talisman inside his jacket—a silver eagle.

  “No, keeping an eye on you.” His tight lips relaxed into a wry smile. “Making sure you socialize with casters, without…”

  “Getting into trouble.”

  She missed his response as the teleport spell seized them and zipped them off to the big rotunda in the Hamilton headquarters building. Huh. No teleport headache. Well, at least that was one advantage of being a caster.

  Kate trailed Dylan out of the rotunda, down a long corridor, and into a small room with wooden tables and chairs. They’d walked all the way to the north end of the building.

  “Cafeteria?” She read the sign. “I didn’t know Dad had a cafeteria.”

  “I suppose it’s better than interrupting work to get a sandwich. And safer,” Dylan answered.

  A few hours past lunch and only two or three staff members sat in the circular room, surrounded by high glass walls. Kate squinted at the panoramic view of the capital. Sure enough, the red energy of a security grid glowed through the glass.

  Dylan paid for their coffees, and they settled in at a small table by a potted plant as far away from the other diners as possible. He reached into his jacket and touched a silver cone, his eyes losing their focus for a moment. The jade glimmer of a spell settled in around them. The staff sitting in the café got up, one by one, and left. Even when they weren’t finished eating.

  “What did you do?”

  “Ensured our privacy. We can talk without fear of being overheard now.”

  Kate added a packet of sugar to her latte, stirred it, and took a sip. Was his concern general paranoia or did he have reason to worry about someone listening to them? It wasn’t backlash from the spells—the talisman he used stor
ed a spell that the caster—probably Dylan in this case—charged it with beforehand. The backlash came when the caster charged the talisman, not when he activated the spell inside. Or so Grayson had told her.

  Dylan pulled out his notebook. “I know your uncle’s theories about what happened. Now I’d like to know what you experienced firsthand.”

  “Did you find out anything about the stone?”

  “I discovered a few things. I’ll have a much better idea if you answer my questions.”

  Kate told him what had happened, from the time Brian had given her the stone to when she’d blacked out in the Sanctum. Her throat grew tight. She swallowed down tears. She took a deep gulp of coffee, its warm richness filling her with comfort.

  “You know the rest,” she said.

  Dylan jotted a few notes in his book, then looked up. “How did you feel each time you looked at the stone?”

  Kate thought back. “I wanted to keep looking at it. I kind of got lost in it, I guess. It was for me and me alone.” She focused on the feeling. “Actually, I felt that way every time I touched it, too. And I wanted to touch it whenever my hand was near it. In my pocket or when I was looking at it.” And when her uncle had taken it out of its box, after it had changed her. But he’d told her not to say anything to anyone about that.

  “Did anything else happen when you touched it or looked at it?”

  “Yeah. Twice, when I played with it, I just…lost track of time, I guess. A half hour the first time and hours the second. I had no idea where the time went.”

  “That’s very…interesting.” Dylan wrote something in his notebook.

  “What?” Kate said. “What’s interesting?”

  He flipped back a few pages. “Tell me about bringing it into the circle stones. What exactly did it—”

  “Hold on.” She reached across the table and tapped on his notebook. “This isn’t fair. I’m the one giving all the information here. You’ve obviously figured something out. So tell me what that damn stone was doing to me.”

  Dylan fiddled with his pen. “I can’t be sure yet, but I think it was running through a few spells it had programmed in it. Spells it was casting on you.”

  The coffee in her hands wasn’t enough to keep her warm anymore. “Besides the ones it cast in the Sanctum? Why?”

  He hesitated. “I really can’t say until I’ve had a chance to examine it. And that’s not bloody likely. But given what happened, I have a few theories. They…aren’t quite the same theories your uncle has, I’m afraid.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, let’s start with what we agree upon. The stone was programming you for certain behaviors. It wanted you to bring it into the Sanctum.”

  “Why would it want that?”

  “It may have needed the Sanctum’s power to transform you. Before it brought you into the Sanctum, when you stared into it and blanked out, it was, well, pre-programming you. To become a caster.”

  She felt as if invisible fingers had wormed their way into her spine and were writhing on the delicate fibers inside. “Maybe I don’t want to know any more of what you find ‘interesting.’”

  “Sorry.” His eyes softened in sympathy. “I’m afraid I can’t agree with my superior on a few other points, however.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Your uncle believes that it was your brother’s counterspell itself, interfering with the stone’s power, that caused his death. I think there may be another explanation.” He paused. “What do you know about primal magic?”

  “We used to be able to do it ourselves, and now we can’t. We have to use artifacts to cast primal magic spells. Things that were made in the First Era and are illegal to use. Like the stone.”

  “That’s basically correct. But you left out something important.”

  “What?”

  “Every act of primal magic, every one, requires a sacrifice. A life for a spell.” Dylan took a long drink from his cup. “I’m not completely certain what your brother was trying to do. He could have been trying to stop the stone from possessing you, as your uncle says.”

  Kate nodded.

  “Or…” Dylan set his cup down. “He could have been trying to stop something else.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “I did my own investigation in the Sanctum, after you asked for my help. Your brother’s counterspell wasn’t as simple as your uncle claims. It’s a very specific spell, only used to stop primal magic. If he knew enough about primal magic to know a counterspell of that level, then he also knew the basic principles. A life for a spell.”

  “So Brian was trying to save himself.”

  Dylan shrugged. “It’s very possible.”

  “Did he know that the stone was transforming me?” Kate’s head slid down into her trembling hands.

  “I don’t know. From his actions, he looked like he had a plan. Wouldn’t you say so?” His eyes darted away from Kate, as if he saw her pain but wanted to allow her what little privacy he could. “The point is this: The spell didn’t killed him. It was the stone. It looked for the sacrifice most appropriate for the spell it was casting and found your brother right at hand.”

  The pain in her chest swelled until it threatened to spill out of her. She’d brought the stone back home, into the Sanctum with Brian. Without her there, it wouldn’t have needed to kill him to power the spell that changed her.

  But if Dylan was right, Brian knew far more about the stone than he’d told her. And Grayson had flat-out lied to her. But why should she trust Dylan over the uncle who’d been the only person who’d dried her tears when she’d failed her magic test, back on her twelfth birthday?

  “Where else don’t you agree with Grayson?”

  “I have to ask you a question first. Have you had any further…communication from the stone?”

  Kate took a breath. She didn’t want to talk about this. Not with Dylan, not with anyone. “Why do you want to know?”

  “I think the stone could have done something else to you. Changed you even more than is apparent.”

  Kate looked down at her coffee. “Grayson never suggested that. What makes you so sure?”

  “My own experience.”

  “Tell me. Convince me you know more about this than Grayson does, and I’ll answer your question.”

  Dylan played with his now-empty coffee cup, saying nothing. The only sound was the espresso machine gurgling in the far corner of the café. A couple walked in from the hallway, then thought better of it and walked back out. Whatever spell Dylan cast must be mighty powerful.

  “When I was younger,” he said, “I got into some…trouble.”

  “How old were you?”

  He stared out the windows at the capital. “Fifteen. I didn’t know any better back then. I did whatever my mother wanted. And what she wanted me to do was use my talents. Creating new spells, figuring out what the old ones did. I was a bleeding whiz kid at that. So my mother put me to work digging up old relics, hoping that one of them would give her the power she craved. Finally, I found one.”

  He swallowed, hard, then blinked furiously behind his glasses.

  “I didn’t realize this would be personal. You don’t have to tell me—”

  “Yes, I do. You need to understand how dangerous these artifacts can be.” He leaned toward her. “I’ve seen this kind of thing before. Not the stone, nothing quite so powerful, but artifacts like it. Put them in the hands of people who crave power, and someone else always suffers. At the time, I was too young to know that power always comes with its own price.”

  “Who was it?”

  “My father. The artifact took him in exchange for the power my mother wanted. And eventually, the whole clan suffered in retribution for her illegal actions. There is no more Pearce family. London is a battleground fought over by the Hamiltons and the Makrises.”

  “Dylan, I’m so sorry.” She reached for his hand.

  He pulled away, his hands going to his lap. “So what I beli
eve about your artifact comes from firsthand experience. I can tell you this: I think the stone and everything like it should be destroyed. That’s my advice to you. Destroy the bloody thing. Before it kills someone else.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Kate thought over what Dylan had said. She couldn’t argue with his logic or his experience. If the stone was as dangerous as he’d implied, then they should destroy it before it did any more damage.

  She sighed. “I can hear it. Every time Grayson has taken it out of its box, it talks to me. Wants me to touch it.”

  Dylan started. “Don’t. Whatever you do, don’t touch the stone. Not until we understand what that will do. Did you tell your uncle?”

  “Yes. But he…he hasn’t explained what it’s doing.”

  Dylan stared down at his notebook. He tapped his pen on the paper.

  “Do you know what it wants?” she asked.

  He hesitated. “That depends. I’ve been researching an artifact for the past few months, as part of my duties as your dad’s primal magic specialist. If the stone is the artifact I think it is, that it appears to be…”

  “What?”

  “Your uncle believes the stone creates casters from Nulls. I’ve never heard of an artifact that can do that. But I’ve heard of another one. So have you.”

  She leaned forward.

  “The Pandora Stone.”

  “You’re kidding.” The Pandora Stone was nothing but a legend. She’d heard stories of it ever since childhood, along with tales of Lyndal the Untamed, the Battle of Kolasa Ridge, the Hundred Furies, and all the other First Era legends. But even though the stories all disagreed about what the stone did, they all agreed about one thing: it was lost, never to be found.

  “I’m deadly serious. I believe the mage Lyndal created the Pandora Stone in the last days of the First Era to bring magic back if it ever completely disappeared. Real magic. Primal magic.”

  “But that’s not what it did to me—”

  “I don’t think we know enough to say what it did to you yet.”

  She focused on his words and tried to recover from her shock. “Why are your theories different from Grayson’s?”