Cast into Darkness

by Janet Tait

  Inside the aquarium, a large beetle dropped from the glass wall onto the sand. A flicker of purple shone along the border of the circle.

  The bowl sitting in front of Melina had changed from white to black.

  Melina got to her feet and paced around the circle, peering in at the cages.

  “That was different, wasn’t it?” Kate said.

  “Did you concentrate on the symbol? I didn’t see you trace it or hear you chant.”

  “No.” She thought about what she had done, how she had contacted primal magic inside her. Its subtle threat to consume her until she cast the light spell. How could she explain how that felt? Words were inadequate. “It was different. I just willed it into being.”

  Melina didn’t look all caster-haughty anymore as she stared intently at Kate. Instead, the gleam in Melina’s eyes reminded Kate of the look one of her classmates had given her once when she came to school with a new designer handbag.

  A look that said, I want that, and I don’t care what I have to do to get it.

  “What did I do? It’s not regular casting.”

  “No, it doesn’t seem to be. Let’s see what another spell will do.”

  Melina wrapped the bowl back up and placed it behind her.

  Bitch. She’s doing something with that bowl, something she’s not likely to tell me about. And she knows I’m a primal magic caster. The spell uses death as its price, not paranoia. And from what Dylan said, that’s primal magic. Forbidden, death magic.

  She rubbed the metal of her spellcuffs and thought about the alien power’s cool regard when she cast the light spell. This for that.

  “I…don’t want to,” she said.

  “You don’t want to? If you ignore this it won’t go away. You’ll use it, and when you do you won’t know how to control it. Is that what you want? Do you want the darkness to take you over?”

  She gulped down her fear. “What do you want me to do?”

  “We’ll try a bigger spell, something that requires a larger sacrifice.” Melina paced in front of her. “Try a shield.”

  She didn’t want to touch the void inside again. But what did Dad always say? If you don’t control the situation, the situation controls you.

  She focused and again dived into the blackness. First order of business—maintaining contact with the power inside her while still seeing her outside environment. She couldn’t deal with Melina if she couldn’t see her.

  The principle must’ve been the same as with magesight. Like Grayson had said, Maintain a soft, easy focus on your inner world, then let the outside world leak in through your peripheral senses.

  She tried it, watching the dark sea before her, eyes relaxed, then pictured the Sanctum around her, separated from her inner world by an imaginary white veil. Bit by bit, the outside world appeared just beyond the veil. First Melina, then the animals in their cages, the circle stones, and the rest of the Sanctum.

  It worked. Hallelujah.

  Before the force inside her could do more than lap its waves against her feet, she acted.

  Shield, she willed.

  The spell popped into being around her much quicker than a normal shield spell would form. Then the power went out and chose. A squeak started up, then broke off suddenly. A mouse.

  Poor thing.

  The purple band flickered again. Melina peered into the cages, frowning, then scribbled in her notebook.

  They tested every spell Kate had been taught. Each time the purple band flickered. Each time something in the cages died: a mouse, some fish, a trail of ants, a rabbit. As each animal died, the others became more frantic. What made the magic pick three mice one time and a flock of canaries the next? Kate had no idea.

  But she thought Melina did. She wrote in her book after each spell, pacing in front of the circle stones. Her steps grew shorter, her strides faster. But Kate grew more tired. Tired and worried.

  She didn’t know what hidden consequence there might be to using so much primal magic. Every time she went down into that black well, did she lose a little bit of her own light? She had no way of knowing. But the hunger from the primal magic felt real. As real as her own dread.

  Melina didn’t heed Kate’s pleas to stop. To eat something, get some sleep. Each spell needed to be measured, each sacrifice had to be noted. Finally there were only three animals left inside the circle with Kate. A mouse, rummaging around the floor of its cage, whiskers twitching; a king snake lying coiled in the corner of an aquarium; and the dog.

  “I can’t do this anymore. What if the spell I do is too powerful, and the magic doesn’t want any of the animals?” What if it wants me instead?

  Melina tossed her hair back. Beads of sweat ran down her face. “Don’t worry about that. Just try the stun spell.”

  That spell had killed all of the beetles on the riverbank in Africa when she’d used it on Dmitri. There were no beetles left to kill here. If the magic didn’t consider the animals that were left a fair trade for hundreds of beetles, what would it do?

  “We’ve done enough. Turn off the circle and let me out.”

  “Oh, we’re not close to being done.”

  “I can’t do this all day. There’s not paranoia backlash, but it’s…draining.”

  “How? Tell me.”

  All this note-taking… It didn’t make sense if Melina was telling the truth. If the stone was trying to possess her, and all Melina wanted to do was sever its connection to her, why did Melina want to know how her power worked?

  “Why do you care?” Kate could barely get the words out, sitting on the floor, with her head in hands.

  Melina studied Kate’s huddled form. Then something behind her eyes shifted.

  “I know you’re tired. Do this one spell, and we’ll take a break. I promise. It’s important.”

  “How? What will it tell you—”

  “You’ll have to trust me.”

  Like she’d ever do that.

  “I want you to try something different with the stun spell. Stun the mouse. Make the magic take the dog as a sacrifice, not the snake. Do you understand?”

  “You want me to tell it what to take? Not allow it to take whichever one it wants?”

  “Yes.”

  That’s it. Kate narrowed her eyes at Melina. She’s figuring out which spell requires what level of sacrifice, how much control I have over primal magic. But why?

  Shit. I don’t want to go down into that blackness again. One slip, just one, and… I don’t care what she’ll do to me.

  “I can’t. It won’t do what I say.” She closed her eyes, weariness catching up with her.

  “Try it, Kate.” Melina tapped her pen against her notebook.

  “No.”

  “Do it.”

  “I said—”

  Fiery pain burned her hands from the inside out, then raced up her arms. She gasped and rolled onto her side, shaking. The pain intensified, turning her arms into burning brands. The agony roared in her chest, the pain transforming every muscle, every rib into a cauldron of torture.

  No, no, I’m not giving in. I’m not…

  The pain washed through her stomach like a torrent of acid. It ate into her middle, burning through her guts and down into her hips. She curled into a tight ball and bit her tongue. The blood dripped on the Sanctum floor.

  “Stop, please stop.”

  “I don’t want to hear you say no. Not ever again.”

  Kate tried to draw in a breath. All she felt was pain. She focused on the white mouse as it shuffled along in its glass cage a few inches from her trembling hands, oblivious both to her agony and its potential fate as it sniffed the wood shavings lining the floor of its terrarium.

  “Are you going to do what I asked?”

  “Yes.” Until I learn how to control this thing inside me and use it send you and the rest of your family to hell.

  The pain eased first in her hands and arms, and then slowly, far too slowly, in her chest and middle. She lay curled on the floor for a mome
nt longer than she needed to, breathing. Watching the mouse wiggle its nose, the dog’s paw twitch as it slept. Then she sat up and wiped the blood from her mouth.

  The whole “I’m just your big sister trying to help you out” look had vanished from Melina’s face, and only raw ambition remained. As Kate held her gaze, Melina’s eyes filled with discomfort until she looked down at her notebook, pretending to read whatever she had written.

  Huh. Maybe she has a conscience after all.

  Kate gave Melina a sharp nod. Diving down into her internal abyss, she sought out and touched the primal magic lightly with her presence. It acknowledged her. She quivered, queasiness filling her with a kind of sick terror. She tried to set it aside and move on. She had work to do.

  Keeping half an eye on the Sanctum, she sent her will into the heart of darkness within her.

  Stun, she willed, thinking of the mouse in the cage next to her. As soon as she willed it, the air rippled and the mouse fell on its side. The dog. I have to…

  She gasped at the slithering magic inside, trying to make it obey. The energy swirled past her as easy as a desert wind, swamping her with its darkness. It would consume her without thinking about it, as if she were plankton scooped up in the mouth of a blue whale.

  No. Oh no. It’s going to pull me down again. I’ve got to make it obey me. Make it pick the dog.

  She tried to grasp at it, twist it with her mind somehow. Do what I say, dammit.

  The power loomed over her. It slammed into her with a tidal force, washing over her and rushing around her feet, her legs, her torso, pulling her down into the void.

  Stop, stop… Forget about the damn dog and let me go.

  It couldn’t end like this. Eaten alive by what the stone had put into her. She willed it to stop, to halt, to go away. Anything, anything. Her feeble attempts at control failed. It kept coming, sliding up her chest, around her arms, entwining her in its ebony blankness.

  She was lost.

  A burst of white light shone down upon the darkness. Melina. The light dissolved the blackness that pulled Kate under like a flame melting a candle. The primal magic retreated, bit by bit, as the light intensified, freeing her arms, her stomach, her legs. Kate’s fear eased a little as the darkness slinked back into wherever it hid inside her.

  The light. Now that she’d seen it a second time, it seemed familiar. Someone, somewhere, before Melina, had used it. Either on her or near her. But who, and where?

  Kate, sprawled on the floor, blinked to clear her eyes. The mouse lay stunned. The dog howled in its cage, terrified. She had no idea if the purple band had flashed or not, but she didn’t need its evidence to see her complete failure. The snake lay dead, the price for the spell. The power had taken what it wanted.

  Melina’s eyes shone with a cold light. A smug smile hovered around her lips.

  “Well. Your attempt at control wasn’t too successful, was it?”

  That smile… She wanted me to fail. Why?

  Melina picked up her notebook and make another notation, her hand flying across the page.

  Oh God. Is she going to make me control the power again? She said I could take a break. When the hell will this end? What happens if the power goes after me again and she can’t bring me back?

  Kate noticed Melina watching her. She wiped the fear off her face.

  Melina went behind the blue glass wall. She came back with another cage—this one holding a rat, two small ferrets, and a turtle.

  “Again,” Melina said.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Kristof leaned back in Melina’s leather chair, staring out her picture window. Gulls circled in the blue sky, nothing on their tiny minds but when to dive into the deep, blue waters below for another fish. He wished his life were that simple.

  Twelve hours in the Pit had taken its toll. The pressure of the chair made his thighs and back ache. The roughness of his linen shirt scratched his sensitive skin. The light, even filtered through his sunglasses, stabbed like daggers through his eyes. Every breath was agony. The long climb up hadn’t helped, but Melina hadn’t responded to his request to lift her teleport block.

  Hamilton thought the punishment would teach him a lesson. He doubted the thoughts he’d had while hanging upside down in the dark, lashed with needle-thin whips of magical energy over and over again, met Hamilton’s ideal of apologetic.

  Kristof knew how much he had hurt Kate. It wasn’t that he didn’t regret it. But once he’d stayed with her long enough to realize the damage he’d done, the trap had snared them both.

  No, he focused on something else while his father’s enforcers sent spell after painful spell coursing through him. The stone. He needed the stone to make his father pay.

  Melina’s precious work had better show her how to use it. God knew it had cost him enough. They needed a plan, one they could execute quickly. Once his father got his hands around the stone they’d never be able to pry it out.

  The door to Melina’s Sanctum cracked open. He took his sunglasses off, hooking them onto his collar. Melina slipped out, a small silver box in her hand. The stone. Kristof caught a glimpse of Kate, lying like a broken doll in the center of the circle stones, her red hair gleaming in the light of the crystals.

  He shot to his feet, overbalancing for a moment when the dizziness hit him, then steadied himself. “What have you been doing to her?”

  “Nothing you need to be worried about.”

  “Really? Doesn’t look that way. What have you been doing?”

  Melina shut the door on Kate. “Finding out what the stone did to her. How she broke the teleport block when she tried to escape. Trying to understand how we can use the stone—” she caressed the box “—against Papa. Isn’t that what you want?”

  He slumped back into the chair. “Yes. What did you find out?”

  “It’s the Pandora Stone, exactly as we suspected. What we need to know is which of the legends around this thing is true.” She set the box on the small wooden table in front of Kristof and sat facing him. “Now I know.”

  “Well?”

  Melina studied Kristof for a long moment, her fingers running against the smooth arm of her chair. Then, “The stone transformed Kate into a primal magic caster. Like the ancients. Your girlfriend uses death magic, brother dear. Remember that the next time you want to get close to her.”

  “You’re wrong. Only artifacts can channel primal magic.”

  “Until now. Remember the legend that the Pandora Stone will bring magic back into the world? Apparently it does, but the kind it brings back is the ancient’s kind—death magic.”

  Shit. When she tried to break the teleport block yesterday, I could have paid the price. “Can she control this power? Choose what it kills in exchange for a spell?”

  “No. The stone isn’t finished changing her. I think her brother interrupted it, probably with a counterspell. It’s locked on Kate until it completes its programming.”

  “And if it does?”

  “Kate will be the world’s only primal magic caster. A Hamilton, Kristof, not a Makris. Capable of feats of magic only the ancients could perform, just for the price of a few fish or the man who catches them. All that power, and she’ll never be locked away, mind gone, trying to tear her skin off, screaming her agony until she dies.” Melina stroked the arm of her chair. Her eyes wandered over to the picture of their mother, back in its place on the old oak cabinet against the wall. Melina had never told him why she’d chosen to be a technician instead of a combat mage, but he could guess. Being two years older than him, she’d witnessed more of their mother’s descent into madness and death. Technicians have a gentler path into darkness than that of a combat mage.

  “What are you thinking? You aren’t going to let the stone complete its programming.”

  “No.” She hesitated. “Kristof, what do you want? More than anything else?”

  His hand slid into his pocket. Why didn’t I throw out Kate’s buttons?

  “I want to run
this family. I want our father gone,” he said.

  She smiled. “Good. I know how to use the stone. It creates primal magic casters from Nulls. We can use it to create our own primal magic caster, someone loyal to us, our own assassin whose magic can kill Papa straight through every shield and bodyguard he owns.”

  “How? And who do you plan to transform?”

  “Leave the how to me. I’ll use Aurelia, the Null I have tending to Kate. She’s been well-treated—she’ll be loyal to us.”

  He frowned. “So do it.”

  “I have to sever Kate’s connection to the stone first.” She paused, giving Kristof a long look. “Breaking the link will kill her.”

  “No. No, I won’t let you—”

  “Make up your mind, brother dear. What do you want? Some half-trained girl like Kate whose lack of control over her power will get you killed, or to sit in Papa’s place? You can’t have both.” She stood. “I’m sick of your vacillating. Are you in or out?”

  He stared at his sister, the hard gleam in her eyes. His pulse raced like he’d cast a dozen combat spells. I can’t let her kill Kate. I can’t.

  Make up his mind, Melina had said. Time to do just that.

  There had to be a way to win—save Kate and depose his father. He ran a dozen scenarios through his mind. None of them got him what he wanted.

  He remembered the way Melina had touched the stone’s silver box. She’s going after what she wants regardless of what I say. He needed to buy himself some time.

  “I’m in,” he said.

  Kate looked up as a click sounded. Melina, framed in the light beyond the open Sanctum door. No, no more of this hell. Not one more descent into the darkness within her.