Karolina Dalca, Dark Eyes

by M. R. Noble

  “Breathe.” The word echoed through me, robbing my body of any part it touched. My muscles contracted as they were momentarily crippled. I felt barren. The water constricted my last inch of precious air.

  “Breathe!” Every aspect of the word hurt, tormenting my flesh. Images of Andre and me within the murky blue of the Black Sea drowned my mind. The burning in my lungs. The bulging of my veins. The blackness which consumed me. An image of Kazimir’s face morphed into my burning house. Mama’s hand exploded into flames. An image of myself setting fire to our house and Mama tormented my mind. I wanted to vomit, to scream, but instead I froze. The moment played over in my head, each time inflicting more grief, until it felt like my soul was being ripped from my body. I wanted to crumple up and die.

  Mama’s face flowed into my mind, and I wanted to save her like I had wanted to save the boy. All the people still locked in the cells in Kazimir’s layer still needed my help. I had failed them. A tiny spark inside of me was fanned to light. The water had overwhelmed me, and my fire would surely fade. My earth magic would be no use against the tidal flow—but it didn’t have to help me. So long as I still had breath, I could help the people captured.

  I didn’t try to fight the pain of Mama’s death. I let go of the things I had no control over. Kazimir’s voice still screamed through my head, but it was distant like speaking from the far side of a theater. I set to my purpose and summoned my earth magic, its tingle mixed with the screaming nerves in my toes.

  This is for you, Mama, because you taught me well. I gathered the warm sensation of the magic in my chest, letting it build within me, and imagined the electronic locks on the glass doors. My eyes winced closed as the colossal flow of water pummeled onto me.

  I released my spell. The warmth left me, and through the clear mound of fluid, a golden light scrolled through the water and up into the air.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  A Hero’s Call

  A white light glowed warm against my face and the darkness which surrounded receded. The pain cascading through my body turned to jelly. I rose like a balloon toward the light. An unseen force drew me to it, like the glowing sensation which comes from the voice of a parent when you’re an infant. A being out there loved me more than I ever knew—and they called me home.

  Hesitation tugged at me. My airy thoughts weighed the prospects of the people I’d just released. I’d forgotten them completely until now. Did they need me? I hovered in a pause. Andre. What was he going to say to me at the hotel? Roman. A warmth radiated on me. The sunny memories of a picnic with his family elevated me higher, only to arch and weigh me down. The thoughts filling my head weighed on me, and as they quickened, I drifted farther away from the light.

  The heat around me faded, like draining a bathtub. Slowly the sensation of my body flowed back to me, the hair in my scalp and the nerves of my skin tickled to life. With a tiny shock, my heart thumped. Its beating rose and played musically in my ear. The spark grew and danced with every beat, like each one was a pluck on the strings of the universe—like it held the secrets to life itself. Each beat sent waves of magic through me, and with every pump of blood I grew stronger.

  The momentum built. I felt like I could no longer contain the energy of life within me. Karolina. Mama’s voice grazed my ear. My eyelids flickered as I inhaled a breath. I caught a glimpse of the room and saw Kazimir’s back as he walked to Bronwyn. I should have wanted to incinerate them, but it wasn’t about them anymore. It was about the prisoners, and I would ensure their escape.

  I chanced a second look at the ceiling, then lay cadaver still. The Shadow Forged still stormed above me, but a faint glow of silver strings of light lined the ceiling. I was seeing the ward bonds Bronwyn forged. Kazimir’s wards were made of light magic, but he wasn’t the type to let people pass through his compound freely. If people were out of their cells, the wards had to come down for them to get outside.

  I searched the inner corners of my mind, looking for what I learned about wards from Miruna’s book of white magic. As my thoughts puzzled together, the new power inside me was kicking at the door to let loose. For a moment I dared to think I may have invoked the Light Charm.

  I pictured the strings of light I saw on the ceiling and imagined them woven together throughout the whole complex. According to Miruna’s book I had to look for the misplaced thread. My new senses spread out, feeling the weave. I continued until a single thread end stuck out in my mind. In my head I could see my hand pinch the thread and pull.

  A mass of the energy flowed out my chest with a whoosh. My eyes shot open. A sonic boom reverberated above. Forks of lightning snaked down the walls in a fire show. The Shadow Forged fled from the chunks of ceiling which tumbled down from the electric blasts.

  Kazimir whirled around. With a furious sneer he flicked a rolling wave my way. It thundered toward me with savage speed.

  The voltage in my heart broke forth. It blew out from my chest in a blaze of light, frying my bonds and tossing me from the table. As I crashed to the ground, the stream of lightning zig-zagged through the water toward Kazimir.

  He gasped. His head rapped against the concrete as the force of the lightning drilled him into the ground. A dark spot grew on his breast where the electricity zapped into his chest. A cloud of vapor emerged. The pungent odor of rotten meat drifted through the room.

  Bronwyn’s voice pierced into a scream. She charged me. Balls of light gathered in her hands as she leapt into the air. The electricity in her hands sucked together into a massive stream.

  I covered my face with my forearms. I jumped to a lunge. My heart swelled, loosening another stream of power. The electrical charge exploded and caught her blow mid-way. Sparks flared out over our shoulders.

  She dodged me and threw a short punch into my ribs with a glowing hand. Flares of light sprawled from the hit. The electrical burn jolted through me, but not like before.

  I threw an uppercut into her jaw.

  She grunted with the impact and recoiled. Except her elbow silently glided to my jaw within my peripheral vision.

  I slid back and caught her wrist with mine just in time. I gripped her second hand and locked my elbow with hers.

  She was trapped in a deadlock.

  Sparks cascaded around us from the contact of our skin, encircling us on the concrete. Her leg swept at mine, but I held the hold. Shoulder to shoulder, she stared me down. I held the gaze of the woman who killed my mother.

  “Why?” I asked.

  An ember of light glimmered in Bronwyn’s eye.

  “Why!” I screamed.

  Piercing light exploded outward into the room with a thunderous crack. The redheaded man she’d called Lukas dropped down from the orb with his sword drawn. He plummeted into a heap of Shadow Forged, which had silently swarmed behind me.

  Dyads hunt Shadow Forged. I disassembled the ward of light magic shielding Kazimir’s compound, and accidentally exposed Kazimir’s horde of Forged to the Dyads. It was a happy coincidence…exposing Bronwyn to her own.

  She shifted the moment we caught sight of Lukas. She had abandoned her grapple with me and was already charging toward the misshapen forms. But Shadow Forged were always controlled by a master. I glanced back to Kazimir. Not only was he still breathing, he’d crawled away from the charred spot on the floor. His haggard form leaned against the wall, moving his hands like a drunken orchestra conductor. Only instead of music, he was conducting a lethal horde of Forged.

  I ran toward him.

  A Forged glided into my path. It reared on its back legs, like a wolf spider, and sprang. As it soared through the air, its human belly was exposed along with two conjoined human heads. Panic triggered a bout of light magic from my pounding heart. A stream of light beamed a hole through the Forged in a huff of ash, but gravity kept it on its collision course.

  I tucked and rolled. As the world whirled, I glimpsed Lukas and Bronwyn battling a group of the Forged. Two more stormed at me. An indigo charge of electricity
blazed in the corner of my eye, followed by the heinous snarl of a wolf. The charred body of a Shadow Forged fell to my feet. The familiar jaws of a werewolf clamped down on the second. He shook it like a rat caught in a terrier’s jaws. Andre and two vampires I’d never seen before streaked to my side.

  “Get ready!” Andre called.

  The smoky tail end of Kazimir’s jacket disappeared behind a door arch.

  “He’s getting away!” I bolted from the group. The scene around me distorted as I used up the last of the blood I’d consumed to run freight-train fast. My knees buckled with the force of each step. My body couldn’t maintain such speed while my inhuman strength depleted.

  Down the hall, Kazimir’s singed patches of hair jerked up and down. His outstretched hand clung to a strap wrapped around a Forged as it dragged him along the floor. The Forged bolted at arachnid speed from the sound of my footsteps. Kazimir’s ragged body kicked up dust as he skidded along.

  I couldn’t let him get away. Deep down I knew it was wrong. To chase him down. To pursue an unarmed man. Kazimir was no longer a threat, or else he wouldn’t be running—but he would be one day. He wouldn’t give up. He wouldn’t yield. In his mind, he was God.

  I ran him down and let loose every ounce of white magic I had. There was a whoosh. Then an explosion of light filled the hall. Kazimir’s voice cried out in the abyss. Cloudy spots overwhelmed my vision. A ringing barreled from ear to ear. The vague outline of shapes in the corridor slowly darkened back into view. The world was once more.

  Kazimir lay half scorched in a crater of black ash which stood out like a pothole in the white marble.

  I crept closer. A tremor rose from my ankles to my knees. I told myself it was from the running, but when I looked at the damage I did, I knew it wasn’t. The electric blast had practically cooked Kazimir. Chunks of his flesh screamed out an angry cerise color or had crisped to black completely. Its pungent odor added to the sickness brewing in my stomach.

  My cheeks were wet, but I couldn’t look away. To know a life—evil or not—had ended, hurt my soul. I extended my hand subconsciously, like I could grab hold of the life force which was once there and keep it from escaping.

  Kazimir’s hand shot out. His sticky fingers closed around my wrist. He jerked me closer, with strength which was startling for a dead man. “So brave,” he croaked out. “A hero, are we?” An unseen force knocked my head back. An image hijacked my mind. It was my father’s face, captivating in all its glory.

  Over nineteen years of dreamy sleeps I never imagined meeting him. To see him now in the flesh was beguiling. If I put my hand to his face, I would feel the warmth of his cheek and the patches of stubble breaking the smoothness of his shaved skin.

  My father looked down as a voice pleaded, and the ripples in his face smoothed to alabaster. “If the public wielded fire, the world would burn.”

  “Please!” A man on his knees clutched his son. “He’s only two years old!”

  “His powers would corrupt him as a man, in the worst ways. It’s better this way.”

  “But you yourself are not corrupted?”

  My father’s gaze changed. He no longer looked at the man, but through him. “A Tzar forfeits his life for his people. As such, he no longer exists as a man.”

  Fire scorched through my mind enveloping the man’s cries. Among the flames, his screams took root in my own mouth as the pain of burning flesh and my father’s words engulfed me.

  A gurgling noise sputtered from Kazimir’s mouth, and his fingers around my wrists relaxed and fell away. I looked to him in time to see his eyelids close. The room became ghost calm. A feeling of loneliness hung in the air. I rolled my shoulder against the chill, as if composing myself would undo the irreversible act I’d just committed. Looking down at the empty vessel which was once the most frightening person I’d ever met, my mouth dried.

  “Goodbye, Kazimir,” I said.

  A yelp echoed down the hall. Screeching followed, clawing at my eardrums. I buckled to my knees. The noise sounded like a human scream played backward through an old transistor radio. A noise not of this world. I raced down the corridor clutching my ears and skidded through the door arch.

  The Forged had gone berserk. They no longer moved in calculated masses or battle formations. The masses of them swarmed like wasps, hive minded in their direction, but individually they were crazed. Each one thrashed its appendages like it was caught between a seizure and excruciating pain. The closer I got, the more trans-dimensional their screams, like a rift had been torn through matter itself.

  The Forged were no longer controlled. Kazimir had finally died, and now the Forged were loose upon the world.

  I caught sight of Roman’s tail lashing under a mound of screaming Forged. Their legs looking like black slimy snakes coiling around him. A group of shiny new Dyads charged to his rescue, torrents of light blazing. All together they bore down on the horde, sending a veil of smoke and ash across the room. Roman’s wolf form emerged, rolling sideways as he shook a Forged from his back.

  Darkness flashed just behind my side. More Forged came up my flank. I turned to face them, and Bronwyn’s luminescent blonde hair shined as she battled in the distance. Fire ignited from my palms. I became a human flame thrower. I drove the flames into the attacking Forged.

  It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. Kazimir would have done anything to hurt me. The group of Forged vanished behind the wall of fire. A moment in time was all it took to wreak irreparable destruction. I had the ability to destroy, but no one had the power to change time, or to bring life back from the ashes.

  A Forged rammed into me from behind. Black disjointed legs wrapped around me. I plummeted to the ground. A dead looking human toe just missed my mouth as the Forged lashed out at my head, and a darkened toenail flicked to the ground. Would my father have thought me as evil as the Forged I was battling? His words played in my head. Corrupted. I twisted underneath the Forged, letting its sandpaper skin shred through my clothes and tear my skin. A tiny human head twitched between two massive pincers which snapped open and shut right before my face. Oily goo splashed across my cheek.

  I brought forth my fire magic. The ruins of the Forged rose to the ceiling in the vapour of the flames. An amber light encircled me on the floor. The insect mind of the horde retreated, like bats from rising sun. I charged them and they exploded into ash like flash bulbs. The ceiling of the room clouded with residue and smoke. The ground grew hot beneath my feet like the concrete itself was melting.

  Bronwyn’s nimble form glided between two of her own kind. They blasted beams of light into another fleeing wave of Forged. A rogue beam glanced through the remnants of the horde. The light of it glittered the faintest shade of gray as it traveled. The tint was barely noticeable, had I not been looking for it and saw who it originated from.

  The bolt sizzled into my flames. My magic flared. The floor flew out from under me. I smashed into the wall. Then I hit the floor. Blood leaked from my forehead. I hauled myself off the concrete. This was the last time Bronwyn’s aim would misfire. She would know what it was like to be on the receiving end of her well-timed accidents. Mama was gone, and she was never coming back. I wanted Bronwyn to know such permanence. More than that, I would give it to her.

  I ran at her.

  A brown form hit me like a wrecking ball from the side. It pinned me down by my shoulders, and I struggled to roll it off. My mind raced to understand why it didn’t get toasted in my fire.

  Its hairy form started liquefying into human skin.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  Roman’s form finished its transition to human, unscathed by the heat of my flames. His naked body held me down while I pummeled against him.

  “Get off me!”

  He took hold of my wrists. “No, Karo.”

  “Ro! She’s evil! You have to let me go!”

  Roman applied more tension to my hips and shoulders, keeping me successfully pinned.

  The memory of Roman’s st
eel strength raced back to me and being pinned under him turned terrifying.

  “Ro.” I gasped. I looked through the sliver underneath Roman’s shoulder and saw Lukas rushing to Bronwyn’s side.

  “Please, Ro. She killed Mama!”

  “Karo, Dyads are the good guys. It’s okay, your saf—”

  “She’s evil!” A shriek balled in my mouth and cut into the air. “She’s Evil! She’s Evil! She’s Evil! Let me go!”

  “Get her out of here!” Roman called to Lukas.

  “No!” I screamed.

  Lukas stepped out from the others and balled his hands together. In a whirl of light from his palms a large electric disk formed in the air from head to toe. Wind whooshed from it blowing in the faces of the Dyads who stood before it, like it was a doorway to another dimension.

  Bronwyn couldn’t get away. It wasn’t a possibility I could fathom. A crushing weight paralyzed me as Lukas rushed Bronwyn to the portal. Snow blew out over her in slow motion, like time had frozen just enough for a small smile to touch her lips. A thought trickled into my mind too late, and when I called forth my earth magic, she stepped into the orb of light and vanished. More of the Dyads followed, and with a whoosh of Lukas’s hands the portal collapsed in on itself.

  “No…” A tear rolled down my cheek as I fell silent.

  “I think she’s lost it,” a voice said from behind Roman.

  “Dramatic outbursts are genetic in this family. You’d know, brother.”

  “Karo?” Roman asked. He looked at me like he was afraid I would grow jaws like his and bite his head off.

  I appeared out of control, and she appeared the victim. Kazimir’s image of my father’s words slammed into my head. I shoved them into the cobwebbed part of my mind, telling myself I’d deal with it another day. To get ahead of Bronwyn’s deceit, I must partake in her ruse long enough to ensnare her. If I told them all what she did now, they would just question my sanity further. She’d gotten away with it—for the moment. The bitter taste of this reality rivaled the foul taste of the vampire blood on my tongue. I swallowed the need to blurt out the truth, and it burned all the way down.