Malevolent (The Puzzle Box Series Book 1)

by K. M. Carroll

  But he didn't, and the cold pierced my heart. It beat once.

  Thud. I was made of stone and ice.

  Thud. My neck popped.

  Thud. A tiny point of light glowed a million miles away in the darkness.

  My heart shuddered in my chest and raced like a spooked horse. Warmth spread outward through my body as the blood resumed circulating. I sucked a breath into my empty lungs. The point of light expanded and became the sky, amazingly blue. Mal still bent over me with his eyebrows drawn together with a worry line between them, but he no longer smeared black at the edges.

  "Can you move?" he murmured.

  I shifted my feet inside my sneakers, and curled my fingers into cold, gritty soil. Pins and needles stabbed through my limbs. "Yes." My voice worked, too. The pain in my throat and neck had vanished.

  He slipped an arm around my shoulders and helped me sit up.

  I drew a deep breath. Instead of the air bouncing off the inside of my lungs, oxygen poured into my bloodstream. The remains of the icy cold fled my body, replaced by glorious, healthy warmth. I rubbed my arms and legs, which tingled like mad. Then I touched the back of my neck, where the bones had crunched. "You healed me?"

  Mal's eyes were a bright, alien green with his concern. "In a manner of speaking."

  The chalk circle still surrounded me, and he'd fixed the spot Robert had broken. I stood up, stretched, and laughed when no dizziness struck me. No problems but the fading tingles. "You completed the spell, didn't you? I'm well!"

  Mal's eyes slid away from mine.

  For life motes, it had certainly been dark and cold, and there had been all those dead things. I rubbed my neck again, and despite my energy, a little shiver touched my shoulders. "I'm well ... aren't I?"

  "Yes, you're well." But his tone was unhappy.

  I stepped out of the circle and faced him. "What's wrong?"

  "I ..." He stared at the trees rather than at me. "I had to draw upon my lich power to restore you. You needed more life quickly, and therefore, more death to summon it."

  "That's why it got cold and dark. And you had ... black motes swirling off you."

  He ducked his head and hunched his shoulders. "I seldom use that power. But today it was necessary."

  I grinned and patted his arm. "Why are you so hangdog? I'm well! You can't imagine what this means to me--I have my life back!"

  He looked at me with gray, sad eyes. "Look at the orchard, Libby."

  I turned and stared. Slowly my hands crept up to cover my mouth.

  The white flowers had withered into brown lumps. The branches drooped under their own weight, and everywhere the bark was peeling. The once green weeds had turned gray and mushy. The grass along the canal was brown, too. A fish rose to the surface and floated on its side. Dead centipedes curled in the dust.

  "What did you do?" I whispered through my fingers.

  He folded his arms, as if trying to keep warm. "It took all the life motes in the area to restore you."

  "Did you kill the whole ranch?"

  "No. Only an acre."

  "A whole acre of the orchard?" I gestured to the dead trees. "We only have seven acres!"

  Mal said softly, "He broke your neck. You were dying. It was the only way to save you."

  I had been dying. I touched my neck again with warm fingertips. My heart beat hard and fast, and I struggled to think. He killed the orchard, yes, but he saved my life. Was it worth it?

  But the dead trees, withered blossoms and drooping branches blasted a terrifying reality through my brain--how would I explain this to my parents? It was too big to hide anymore. And because Mal put me in this situation, I focused my anger on him.

  And Robert. Where had he gone? I looked in the direction of their fight, but there was only an area of churned earth, as if a plow had sneezed.

  "Did you kill Robert?" I snapped. But I was terrified of the answer. Robert had screamed, and then there'd been so many ripping noises ...

  "In a manner of speaking." Mal glanced at the churned earth.

  I followed his gaze. "What, you buried him right there?" Horrifying excerpts from vampire novels flashed through my memory ... the only way to kill a vampire was to dismember him, burn the parts, and scatter the ashes over running water. But Robert wasn't a regular vampire, so maybe dismemberment and burial would do the job.

  My anger flagged, overtaken by a rising tide of horror. Robert had tried to kill me, then Mal tore Robert apart, and killed the orchard to revive me. And here he stood, a strange, thin, pathetic-looking man, awash in the power to control life and death.

  I backed away from him.

  He raised a hand to stop me. "Libby, you don't understand ..."

  "Stay back." I slid down the embankment toward my golf cart, which thankfully had remained unharmed amid the chaos. It made me feel a tiny bit safer. He had made me well--despite his questionable methods. "Thanks for the healing." I paused beside the cart, one hand on the seat.

  Mal remained atop the embankment, silhouetted against the sky, hands buried in his pockets. His eyes were half-closed and shadows had appeared beneath them, as if he were exhausted, or grieved. He nodded to me.

  I jumped in the cart and sped for home. But deep inside, there was a check in my spirit ... I had handled this badly.

  Mal

  May God and all his saints forgive me for what I've done.

  I picked my way along the canal. More dead fish floated down the current. Dead insects littered the ground like leaves. A dead bird lay with its wings outstretched.

  I did this. Worse, I had healed her in the only way death power could.

  She must never know that I made her into a thrall. Only for a moment, true, but long enough for the death motes to take hold and put her completely under my power. Then I was able to command her injured bones and cells to repair themselves with the incoming life magic.

  Such an action is the nuclear option. Yes, it healed her, but it slaughtered every living thing around us. Exactly what I had tried not to do.

  I walked down into the orchard. Dead bees carpeted the ground. I scooped some up in my hands. "I'm so sorry."

  No answer. Silence reigned where once there had been noise and life.

  I had to use my power to combat Robert, which killed more land than healing Libby. He was too strong. Someone had increased his death magic draw, and it supercharged him. Someone like the Necromancer.

  Robert's pieces lay buried in the earth, but even that would only delay him a while. He would return, and the battle would escalate ... but I had bought us time. A few days, maybe.

  The look on Libby's face haunted me. The horror in her voice. Perhaps I should follow Robert's advice--quietly drive back to Pennsylvania, and bury myself in obscurity with whatever bees I had left.

  Alarm struck me like a bullet in the heart. Had I slain my bees? I sprinted through the dead orchard to the bee station. Bees still filled the air, and I stopped to catch my breath and listen to their hum.

  The melody was off-key.

  I rushed to my hives and knelt among them. "Queens and workers, are you well?"

  Some hives replied, "All is well, Mal!" But three said, "We suffer."

  I opened each suffering hive. The bees lapped their stored honey as if I had smoked them, and the queen rested on the comb without moving.

  "What is wrong?" I whispered.

  "The death came while we were working," they sang in subdued tones. "Many fell. The rest of us are unwell. We feed upon our stored light."

  "Continue feeding," I murmured. "Rest. It should be enough."

  I closed the hives and sat with my back against the last one. I had nearly killed my only friends, and even mote honey might not be strong enough to save them.

  But I had saved Libby.

  I replayed the incident over and over in my mind, analyzing every nuance. What could I have changed? How could I have acted differently?

  Robert had upset everything by coming after us while supercharged on de
ath. I could not defeat him without empowering myself, and that meant drawing on every life mote in the vicinity.

  Blast my condition. Blast Robert.

  Blast my father.

  I lifted my head and clenched my fists. Through the years, he had often attempted to make me use my death powers--today had been his victory. I had behaved like a lich.

  The bees had warned me that he was in Arvin, and I had not acted. And now I had been forced to use my power to benefit one woman at the expense of her family's land.

  I could curse my father all I wanted, but it changed nothing. I leaned my elbows on my knees and groaned. It was not enough that he was the Arch Lich and the Necromancer. He was my father, and could cripple me emotionally without a drop of magic.

  What if I confronted him and he mentioned Mother? It made me want to curl into the fetal position and die.

  I laid my head on my knees. Libby mattered more than my own pain. If I departed, the Necromancer would enthrall her and every other person infected by Robert. I was the only other lich on the North American continent.

  Only I could stop my father.

  I sat up straight and drew a deep breath. Even though I'd been running a long time, tonight it ended.

  Tonight I would face He Whom I Feared.

  Chapter 11

  Libby

  I drove home, closed my bedroom door and crashed on the bed.

  My mind churned like a cement mixer. Around and around--the healing ritual, Robert's appearance and attack, Mal's retaliation.

  Robert was a vampire. Okay, whatever, I could handle a vampire. I rolled over and looked at my bookcase. Nearly every book had a black and red cover. I knew the tropes. While Robert disgusted me, he didn't surprise me. He did what vamps did--fed on other living things and caused problems.

  But I had zero books about liches. What were they capable of? What should I expect? I had no idea. Would Mal stalk me the way Robert had done? Or could he do nefarious things from a distance?

  Malevolent.

  I should have never tried to befriend him. And yet--and yet he'd saved my life in the only way he could.

  My stomach snarled. I needed food--pronto.

  Oh, yeah. I was well.

  I jumped up, opened my door and went downstairs. Mom wasn't around, so I raided the fridge and made myself a sandwich out of every variety of lunch meat we owned. The more I ate, the better I felt.

  My heart grew heavier as my strength returned. I cleaned up my dishes and tried to reason things out. Mal had healed me--but he'd killed a whole acre. Did that make him evil or good? He'd killed Robert, and murder was evil. But Robert was a vampire, and killing vampires was good. Right?

  I realized I was staring out the window while digging my fingers through my hair. My hand slipped to the back of my neck. The bones had crunched so loudly that it still echoed in my skull.

  You were dying. It was the only way I could save you.

  My heart began to bleed. I needed to talk to somebody. I could give Mom the basic scenario without telling her the whole lich problem--or the issue of a chunk of orchard dying in one afternoon. Never mind that I'd cost Dad upwards of ten grand--it took years to re-grow an orchard, and that was years of lost revenue.

  It made me want to barf. Fortunately my starving body clung to the food in my stomach, and refused to share a crumb with the outside world. Fine with me--I was done being sick.

  Where was Mom, anyway? I circled through the house, but it was quiet and empty.

  I examined the back yard, then walked out toward the farm buildings. My body exulted in the exercise. A little weakness remained, but that was probably from living on toast for six months. My lungs absorbed oxygen and life beat through me.

  I'd wanted my health for so long and now it was as bitter as lemon peel in my teeth. Although from here the orchard was still a wall of snowy white blossoms, I knew what lay behind them--a patch of death.

  I found Mom and Dad standing by the orchard gate. Dad's head was down and forward, as if they were having a serious discussion. Mom's eyebrows formed a worried line. Oh no--had they already found it?

  As I walked up, Dad was saying, "...don't know what caused it. I called the EPA, and they said to quarantine the area until their technicians get here tomorrow."

  Crap, they'd already noticed. "Uh, what's wrong?"

  Dad looked at me. Weariness lined his face, but his eyes glittered in anger. "A whole acre of the orchard is dead. I think a crop duster must have dumped cotton defoliant on it."

  They'd already found the damage. The bleeding inside me grew worse. At least I didn't have to fake my anguish. "What--what will we do?"

  Dad shrugged. "I have to talk to our insurance and find out if we're covered. It depends on the EPA's findings."

  "Don't go out there, Libby," said Mom. "That defoliant is extremely toxic."

  I nodded. Then I stared at them in mute silence. All the heroines in my vampire books reached this point, and I hated it every time--when she knew something important, and couldn't tell her parents because they wouldn't understand.

  Now I was in the same situation, and I hated it even worse, because I understood the irony.

  I walked back to the house. The emotional bleeding inside me had begun to overflow, and tears blurred my vision. I wiped them away and clenched my teeth. I was well--I had that weapon on my side.

  The question was, what to do now? Ask Mal to leave? But that left me alone with Robert and the skull-faced Necromancer. I'd meddled in their business, and there was no way they'd leave me alone.

  I'd just have to stay out of the orchard so no more acreage took damage. Heck, maybe I should move away and attend college somewhere on the east coast.

  But in the meantime, I was stuck here until I graduated high school. And short-term, there was a family of monsters who knew where I lived. I couldn't face the thought of them destroying more of our farm. My family would go bankrupt.

  The thought weighed on me, leaden and miserable. I circled the back yard fence and paused to lean against the air conditioning unit. I wiped my face on my shirt. Get a grip, Libby. So you made friends with a creep. It's not the first time.

  As I turned to walk inside, something gleamed from behind the unit's corner. I reached behind it and grabbed the object.

  Mal's puzzle box.

  I held it in both hands, and stared at the swirled silver inlay. His phylactery. If I opened this box, Mal would collapse and die.

  Was it murder when the victim was already dead? The pendulum in my head resumed its swing. Was Mal good ... or evil?

  He may be a treasure in an earthen vessel, but this vessel killed people. To postpone any decision, I took the puzzle box inside and hid it under my bed. I had Mal's life in my hands, and I couldn't decide if he should live or die.

  Mal

  At midnight, at the time of deepest darkness, I sought my father.

  It's simple to find the Necromancer. Just as one can sense the sun's position with eyes closed, so can one detect the deepest shade.

  At midnight, I closed my eyes and felt for the strongest concentration of death magic.

  He was in the orchard I had killed.

  My power had drawn him. I stood among my sleeping beehives for a long time, one hand resting against the warm wood to feel the thrumming of the colony inside. Life. Joy. The opposite of the darkness that pressed against my senses. It was as if I had opened a black hole among the almond trees--a yawning abyss that devoured all life--and my father waited at the bottom.

  I approached the void at a measured walk, neither fast nor slow. The clouds had cleared, the stars lit my path. Their life-giving motes streamed down in a silent cascade. My innate death magic drew them into me, and strength built in my muscles, but it did not balance the darkness. Only the magic-filled honey could do that, and if this kept up, I'd lose all my hives.

  My slow-beating heart jolted. No. I couldn't lose them, not after the years of work I'd put in. Not after they had trusted me.
r />   Libby had trusted me, too. I gave her the healing she desired, but the price was too high.

  I stopped myself from thinking about her. That way lay paralyzing grief, and the sinking mire of depression. I had work to do tonight, and I needed all my faculties.

  The stars dimmed as I entered the orchard. The Necromancer's aura amplified death and darkness, and if anything had survived my magic, his presence killed it.

  I stopped and closed my eyes. The deepest darkness lay at the canal where I had performed my magic. A shovel scraped in the dirt. Naturally. That was a Necromancer's specialty--reanimating the dead.

  Two fears battled inside me. First, what would he do to me, as a Necromancer, for killing his chief vampire? Second, as my father, what would he say about me killing my brother?

  Once again, I was eight years old and dragging myself indoors to face my father who awaited me with a belt.

  As I picked my way down the avenue of bare trees, his quick digging movement caught my eye. Down went the shovel, aided by a thrust of one foot. Then the shovel rose with a load of earth and flung it aside. His black duster and trousers blended with the night. His death motes were so concentrated that he blurred when I looked away.

  My father: encrusted with evil as a whale carries barnacles. I clenched my fists to keep my hands from shaking.

  As I drew near, he straightened and faced me, driving the shovel into the ground. He regarded me for a moment, his face invisible in the darkness. His pupils, however, glowed red. "Hello, Mal."

  "Hello, Dad." My mouth was dry.

  He gestured to our surroundings. "Is this your doing?"

  I nodded.

  He pointed at the pieces of Robert, some still half-buried, others in a pile. "And this?"

  I nodded again.

  His skull face split in a grin. "Excellent work!"

  I stood there for a long moment, trying to grasp this. He was praising me? Then realization dawned. Of course. I had only done what he had intended. I crossed my arms across my chest and turned away, and pain trickled through my battered spirit.