My heart pounded like a drum until even my fingertips throbbed. The corners of my vision turned red. "Hey, Libby? You just ran us off the road, you jerk!"
"And the only thing you can call me is a jerk? Learn to cuss, Lib."
My voice climbed toward a scream again. "Tiffany's arm is broken!"
"Aw." His grin widened. "You're cute when you're indignant."
My rage boiled over into this insane desire to grab him and tear pieces off his body with my fingernails. So I did the next best thing. I held the shell in Robert's face and focused my fury into it.
He cringed backward and yanked his claws out of the car's roof. He jumped to the ground, and I dashed around the side of the car and blasted him with more magic. He yelled as if I'd poured hot water on him.
Then he ran at me so fast I couldn't track him, and slapped the shell out of my hand. It plinked across the road and off the cliff.
His hands closed on my arms. He leered into my face. "You're no good without your toy. Too bad Mal never taught you to defend yourself."
...he's like an open, festering wound ...
Black dots swam through my vision as he leaned on me with his horrible power. My heart slowed and my adrenaline dropped to nothing. The beautiful anger that had given me courage cooled to ashes. I tried to struggle, but my body had gone heavy and limp. It happened so fast that I didn't have time to feel afraid.
I felt him let me down on the cold, bumpy asphalt--then the darkness took me.
Mal
As the sun set and the moon rose, I tried to reassure myself that Libby was safe. Surely she had reached Santa Barbara by now, and there was no cause for the anxiety that had encompassed me since last night.
I paced between my camper and the bee station, then around the orchards and farmhouse. If only I had a phone, I could have called to make sure she'd arrived safely. Perhaps I should invest in one.
The bees slept in their hives, inside the protective warding. I checked all the spells, found them secure, and roamed the perimeter of the ranch. Life sparkled in every leaf and flower, except for the shadowed acre I had killed.
I silently apologized to the dead trees and animals there. I had taken their lives in a good cause. Trees could be replanted, but Libby could not be restored.
Like Mother.
I cringed from the thought. Libby had not actually died, however. I had performed a healing, not a resurrection.
Father claimed that he could raise Mother with enough power. Whereas I had always argued that it would not work without her soul. Life and death magic, while wonderful tools, were tied to the physical world. Once the soul departed into the spiritual realm, death magic lacked the power to summon it, or so I had theorized. Father's theory stated that just as he could manipulate the souls of the living, so he could control the souls of the dead.
We'd carried on this debate for decades. It was one reason I had abandoned my family and struck out on my own. I cannot countenance slaying a thousand human lives to restore one.
As the night deepened, and the moon climbed toward its zenith, my mood grew darker. Restless energy tugged at my limbs. The honey I had eaten earlier continued to strengthen me with its pure life, and the death power's draw was at its lowest ebb. I was nearly human. Someday I would discover the way to reattach my soul and regain my mortality.
Then I could leave this realm of suffering, where I had walked for eighty-six years, and throw myself into the arms of God. There I would find rest.
I gazed at the stars and spread my arms to their light, but they were drowned by the moon.
The moon is an odd thing. It shines by reflecting sunlight, but is itself dead. Therefore it pours down mingled life and death, empowering the Earth's inhabitants to do extra good--or evil.
I dislike the moon. The life of the stars is much more wholesome.
As I stood there in the light of the moon and stars, darkness crept into my torn spirit. The chill of death touched my marrow. I shivered and clutched my chest. The puzzle box!
It pulled at me with a painful jolt--like being impaled on a fine wire. But the pull did not come from Libby's house, where I had left it--it came from the dead orchard.
When Libby and Robert had handled the box, I had not felt it until they moved it a good distance. This is the vulnerability of a lich's phylactery, and why one hides it so obsessively.
But I felt the dark presence of another lich--his death aura tainted my soul. I shuddered and braced myself against a beehive. My father had obtained the puzzle box.
What if he opened it?
Oh, I talk boldly about embracing death, but when confronted with the raw truth, I prefer to keep living. My slow heart sped up to a nearly normal rate--cold blood warmed in my veins. I wanted to live, but I was more vulnerable than I'd ever been in my un-life. My enemies knew that I'd broken our creed to love none, and my punishment awaited.
Before facing my doom, I dashed to my camper and retrieved my clawed gloves, then the compulsion to protect my phylactery drew me to the dead acre.
Two figures stood in the orchard's center, each surrounded by a black nimbus. Even with my dark-sensitive eyes, I struggled to make out their features.
One of them lifted my puzzle box over his head and called, "Hey Mal, look what I found!"
I stormed toward my brother, flexing my claws. But my father fixed his glowing red eyes on me, and held a hand over the box. Cold stabbed through my vitals, and I halted. The wooden box suddenly seemed as fragile as porcelain. One good smash against the ground ...
"Now now," Dad said, "there's no need for this attitude."
"Where did you get that?" I snarled.
Dad and Robert stepped aside to reveal Libby lying on the ground with her hands tied behind her. She was limp, eyes closed, her brown hair a careless swirl on the earth. A deep bruise stood on her forehead, as if she had been beaten. Her friend Tiffany lay beside her, also bound.
Questions screamed through my head. They were supposed to be hundreds of miles away. What were they doing here? What had happened? I tried to swallow the sudden dryness in my throat.
"Libby had the box." Robert watched my face, smiling with his jaw slack, as if waiting for a victim's first scream. "Didn't you know? Or did you give it to her?"
I didn't answer. She must have been trying to protect it by taking it with her. At any other time, she would have succeeded. Oh Libby, Libby, why must you try so hard to help me?
Dad gestured to the dead trees as if sweeping something invisible out of the air. "There is so much death here, it's an ideal stage for my plan tonight. I wanted to thank you for creating it, Mal."
I ground my teeth, curled my claws and edged one foot forward.
Robert watched me with a smirk, and one finger traced the puzzle box's silver inlay. My brother's disposition was such that he might destroy the box, but he lacked the patience to solve the puzzle. This impulsiveness had grown worse as he had spent years as a vampire, and tonight, I might turn it to my advantage.
Dad breathed deeply, gathering the ambient death, and his black aura spread outward. "It's a shame you're not more accepting of your condition. Think of the techniques I could teach you."
"No, Dad," I replied, struggling to keep my voice even. "You would sculpt me into a weapon of death."
He grinned like a skull. "Your particular talents blend well with the lich condition. Attention to detail. Perfectionism. Patience."
I didn't answer. Libby lay dangerously close to his aura, and the life trickled from her like wisps of steam.
Dad continued to gather power. "You would have been a Marcher, you know. Their scouts had already requested that you join the training academy."
Me. A Marcher. My heart soared, then crashed into a bitter sea. Instead of feeding upon the living, I might have been a protector. "Then why turn me?"
He shrugged. "I hadn't intended to turn you, son. You walked in during my ritual and broke the circle, remember? The backlash severed your soul, and I captur
ed it to save your life. When your lich powers manifested with such strength, I realized I'd made the right decision."
Bitterness like gall filled my mouth. Well did I remember that night--I relived it in my nightmares at least once a month. My despicable death power should have been the pure, clean life magic of a Marcher. I might have had a future with Libby.
"So," I said quietly, "that explains why Mother died."
Dad shrugged. "Unfortunate, but not irreparable."
He called her death unfortunate? When the uncontrolled pull of my death magic had sucked the life from her body? Had he no idea the guilt and grief I had carried these seventy years spent as a lich?
Dad continued, "Son, we have our differences. But I'd like you to join us tonight. Together we can pool our power and raise your mother. We can be a family again."
The same topic, always between us. So many barriers stood between me and that rosy scenario. I named one. "None of us have the power. Her soul has left this plane."
Dad's eyes burned with red light in the shadows of his withered face. "I will bring her back if I have to melt this world down to the core."
"And then what? Watch her live five minutes on a molten rock, only to die again?"
Ever my father's weapon, Robert whipped toward me. His fist struck my chin.
As I staggered backward, he bellowed in my face, "Answer the question! Join us or not?"
I rubbed my split lip, which bled slightly. "No."
Robert slashed at my face with his claws. I parried them with my own. We sprang at each other, blades flashing. Being supernatural creatures, we were evenly matched in speed. His fighting technique was better than mine, however, and I gave ground, backing away from Libby.
"So you have chosen punishment," Father said. He shook his head and produced a human skull from one of the huge pockets inside his duster. "I must proceed without you."
The Necromancer raised his hand, clutching the skull.
Chapter 15
Libby
The Necromancer's power dragged me back to consciousness. One minute I floated in the darkness of sleep--the next, a cold hand grabbed my throat and yanked me upward.
Gasping, I sat up. Dead trees all around, lit by moonlight, like the set of a horror movie. The orchard? How did I get back home? Ropes dragged at my arms. My hands were tied behind my back. Pain throbbed through my wrists and fingers.
A man in a black coat stood with his back to me, a skull held above his head. He was so dark that I hadn't seen him at first. The moonlight bent away from him, as if he were a living shadow. I was willing to bet he was the creepy guy I'd seen crossing the street in the fog. I tried to inch away from him--the sight of him sent cold sweat prickling down my neck.
A short distance away, Mal and Robert carried on a boxing match with claws that flashed and clinked. They moved too fast for me to follow, but neither looked hurt.
Tiffany groaned beside me. She struggled to sit up with her tied hands.
"Tiff! Are you okay?"
"My arm!" she wailed. "Ow! Ow!" She dissolved into incoherent cries.
The man with the skull turned and looked at us.
Yep, creepy fog guy. Except now his eyes actually glowed red. His edges blended into the night, and his face was withered and dead. My first thought was that he was wearing a mask. Then he grimaced at Tiffany's bawling--his face actually moved--and I flinched backward. I stared at the ground and clamped my teeth on my bottom lip to keep from screaming. Cold poured from him like an open freezer, and my survival instincts whispered that I should run away, hide, do anything to avoid the gaze of those glowing eyes.
"Silence," he said.
Tiffany gasped and shut her mouth, staring at the Necromancer. If Robert's power had been like a storm's pressure, the Necromancer's was like trying to stand on the ocean floor five miles down. The breath was slowly crushed from my lungs, and my body felt weighted.
"Robert!" The Necromancer's voice snapped like a whip. He could probably hurt people by speaking their name the right way. "Untie her. She is injured."
I sat perfectly still, head down, the good little prisoner. Robert abandoned his fight with Mal and trotted toward us. I was lying on my side, and my long hair formed a curtain across my face. I peered through it at Mal. He inched toward me, panting, eying the Necromancer as one might watch a rabid dog.
Robert walked up with three nasty knives protruding through his fingers. He sliced through Tiffany's ropes and hauled her to her feet. She screamed with her mouth shut.
Robert turned her to face the Necromancer. "Her arm's broken, Dad. I know you can fix her."
"Please don't hurt her," I said, and cowered as the Necromancer's glowing red eyes swung toward me.
His voice was surprisingly kind. "She is already hurt. I will mend her." He held the white skull up to Tiffany's face, so she stared into the eye sockets.
Tiffany exhaled, slowly. Her shoulders slumped and her whole body drooped. Black shadows peeled themselves off the Necromancer and wrapped around her broken arm. The bones popped.
"There now," the Necromancer said. "How does that feel?"
"Better," Tiffany said. Her voice was flat. No inflection.
My breathing went quick and shallow, and my leg muscles tensed to run. Sure, he had healed her arm--but what had he done to her mind?
I needed Mal. He was twenty feet away and still coming, menacing as the other two--but he was on my side.
I gathered my nerves and tried to project defiance--which was better than turning into a quivering bowl of Jello. "What did you do to her? Is she a zombie?"
"A thrall," the Necromancer said, as if he explained his dark magic to victims every day. "Similar to a zombie. When I give the command, she will awaken and resume her daily life--but I can command her at any time."
A sleeper zombie. I stared at Tiffany's blank face, and twisted my wrists inside the ropes. "That is so sick."
The Necromancer turned the full horror of his attention on me. It crushed my head to the ground, and I was forced to stare at his boots rather than his face. His boots even had tiny skulls stitched in the leather.
"And you, Elizabeth Stockton. Would you like to join her in thralldom?"
Fear fluttered in my throat. It was like a game where I didn't know the rules, and anything I did would end in failure. Failure meant becoming a thrall.
I gathered my courage and took the longest shot available. "Actually, could I talk to Mal for a minute?"
Mal
Dryness coated the inside of my mouth. I had known fear before, but never had I faced terror of this magnitude. Libby's life balanced on the edge of a knife. Yet, she had the temerity to defy my father!
Admiration stirred under my panic.
The Necromancer lifted his hand and began the calling. Dark power flowed around me like a river, threatening to sweep me straight to my father's feet.The infected would arrive momentarily, and when they did the dreaded diamond bottle would emerge.
But my father laughed at Libby's question. Perhaps he, too, admired her spunk. He gestured toward me. "Speak to him all you like, Elizabeth."
Libby sat up, and scooted around to face me, hands doubled behind her. Her eyes glimmered with fear, but she was still in control. "Mal, which is stronger? Life motes or death motes?"
Of all the things I expected her to say, a technical question was not one of them. I floundered through the terrified mush of my brain. "Uh, it is not a question of which is stronger. Death magic only manipulates. Life magic is the true power, but drawn and sometimes twisted by death magic. And often--" I swallowed. "Often death magic consumes life magic so that equilibrium is maintained."
Libby shrugged. "So who is stronger? You or them?"
Oh. That's where this was going. Dad and Robert smirked at me.
My jaw tried to lock, and I had to force out the words. "They have saturated themselves in death so as to draw even more life. They are stronger."
Footsteps crunched in the distance, fr
om the direction of the road. The infected had arrived.
I dashed forward with my magic-fueled speed, snatched Libby off the ground and ran. Robert shouted something, but my father only laughed.
He still possessed my phylactery.
I had nearly reached the far end of the orchard when the current of death dragged me to a standstill. My strength drained away. I sank to my knees and set Libby down on dead grass at the orchard's edge, near the canal.
She gathered her feet under her, and looked at me with wide, frightened eyes. "What's wrong?"
"He has the puzzle box." We exchanged long looks. She knew the implications of this, and simply shook her head. I cut her ropes with quick swipes of a claw. "Go. Run."
Rubbing her wrists, Libby scrambled to her feet, and staggered. "What's going on? It's like--like the whole world is tilted downhill toward them!"
"The magic draw. The Necromancer has lifted his hand." Despair weighed on me worse than any magic. Only a tiny flicker of hope remained. "If you can walk a circle around the orchard, you will keep the Necromancer's power from spreading."
She looked right and left, as if calculating the distance. "Do I have to draw a chalk circle?"
"No. Merely walk." I laid a hand on her shoulder and turned her to the right. "Always go clockwise."
She stood so close, hair blowing about her face, so frightened and helpless. I wished so badly to draw her close and protect her, but there wasn't time. "You are a Marcher, Libby. You have magic. Any route you walk will become a magical barrier against deadly creatures."
She gasped and faced me. A new light shone in her eyes. "I have magic? The lightning in my blood?"
"Yes." Footsteps approached us. I stepped away from her and curled my claws.
She moved as though to catch my arm. "Come with me!"
"I can't. Father has my soul." I could almost feel his cold hands clutching the box. "He's commanding me to halt, and I have to obey."
Malevolent (The Puzzle Box Series Book 1) Page 16