The Dark World

by Cara Lynn Shultz

  I scrambled backward on the floor, pinned against the corner of the classroom.

  This is it. I’m going to die. Again.

  The fireball exploded, temporarily blinding me with a burst of heat and light as Logan sent his weapon spinning in my direction, the blade cutting across the fireball’s path mere seconds before it would have hit me. The sword embedded itself in the French class poster on the wall between the two windows.

  “Get behind the desk!” Logan yelled. I scrambled to the front of the room and dove behind Miller’s desk, flames raining around me as a fireball smashed into the desk, then another. I huddled against the gray metal desk, which began to burn my back as it absorbed the heat of the fireballs.

  The shower of fire stopped, and I cautiously peered out from behind the desk in time to see Logan pinning Blaise against the file cabinet. She clawed for his face but he was quick—too quick—blocking her hands. She spit a wad of fire in his face, and he turned his head quickly, the flames singeing his cheek as he grimaced.

  “Paige, hand me my sword, will you? I need to teach this incindia some manners,” Logan asked calmly, holding her immobile. I ran to the spot where the blade was embedded in the wall and grasped the handle of the sword. My body jolted at its touch—the sword hummed with power in my grip. I braced my foot against the wall and yanked the sword free, stumbling a few feet backward.

  And then I felt it, the burning, searing pain in my side as I was hit with a blast of heat and fire. I fell on the ground, trying to make sense of the agonizing pain, trying to extinguish the flames that felt like they were boring through my skin, tearing through muscle and bone before settling in my very cells. I heard Blaise’s voice and tried to focus on her, on something—anything—to force myself out of my pain-induced stupor.

  “Killing you should make up for killing the Traveler.” Blaise was gloating. She thinks you’re dead. I heard a pained grunt from Logan, and I forced my eyes open to see that he was wrestling with Blaise, who had him pinned on the ground. She was sitting on his chest, her mouth stretched even wider in a triumphant grin as her hands closed around his throat. The brilliant crimson veins began to form a web around her hands, spreading up his throat and across his face as his mouth opened in a silent scream.

  I crawled along the back of the classroom, staying out of Blaise’s eyeshot as I dragged the sword behind me. I used it as a crutch to push myself off the floor, fighting back the agony in my right side as I stumbled behind Blaise, who was straddling Logan’s chest, blanketing him in those glowing ruby veins that were sucking the life out of him. Killing him.

  I raised the sword with trembling arms, wincing in agony as I aimed the tip of the blade down. Using all the strength I had left in my withering muscles, I rushed toward them, plunging the blade between Blaise’s shoulder blades. She threw her head back, her wide mouth opening in a scream that sounded more like a feral roar. She dropped her hands from Logan’s neck, and the fiery red trails slowly receded. Blaise began convulsing, and Logan pushed her off him. I stumbled forward with her body, still keeping my grip on the handle. The blade began to glow, changing from the frosty blue to crimson, yellow and black, colors which undulated like lit firewood that was dying out.

  It started at my hands—a scorching burn that raced through my veins and colored the edges of my vision. Everything shimmered, like pavement on a hot day. I screamed in agony, my chest pitching forward as a sudden blast of heat ripped through my heart, which beat painfully against my ribs. A red filter had been dropped in front of my vision—everything appeared in dizzying shades of crimson.

  I yanked the sword out of her back, staring at Blaise’s face-down body where it lay sprawled out next to Travis’s ashes. Her body was the same dusty gray color, and plumes of sickly sweet smoke rose from her joints.

  Travis... Just stay behind me. Travis, who tried to protect me from Blaise. Travis, who saw her hellish eyes and let me know I wasn’t crazy. Travis, who was only seventeen. And now he’s dead.

  “I got someone killed. I killed someone,” I whispered, gripping the handle of the sword tightly. It vibrated with power in response.

  “No, you didn’t get anyone killed. And you killed a demon that was about to kill me,” Logan corrected me, wincing slightly as he pushed himself off the floor. He took a few steps toward me, and I reflexively held the sword out.

  “What do you mean, a demon? And stay right there! Don’t move!” I ordered. I probably would have been more intimidating if the sword wasn’t shaking like pudding in an earthquake, thanks to my trembling hands.

  “Paige, I’m on your side,” Logan said, holding his palms out in a defenseless gesture that was supposed to be reassuring as he took two small steps forward.

  “What are you, Logan—if that’s your real name?” I eyed him suspiciously, slicing the sword through the air wildly, and Logan shuffled backward.

  “Logan is my real name,” he said, keeping his hands up. “Blaise was an incindia—a fire demon—sent here to kidnap you,” Logan explained, his voice soft and even. I stopped waving the sword, and he took a few steps toward me.

  “And what about you? Are you a demon? How do I know you didn’t kill her to do something horrible to me?”

  Logan dropped his hands and took another cautious step toward me. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m supposed to protect you from them.”

  “Protect me? Who’s ‘them’?” I asked, dropping the sword at my side as Logan inched forward. “What the hell are you? And—” I barked, raising the sword again. Logan took a step back, his hands resuming their inoffensive in-the-air position. “Stop coming closer! I know what you’re doing. You’re not that smooth.”

  Logan took off his baseball cap and ran his hand through his messy brown hair, which looked dark auburn through the reddish haze that coated my vision.

  “I’m a demonslayer, Paige.”

  “Excuse me?” I definitely didn’t read about that job description in my research on the paranormal.

  “Yes, a demonslayer. And we have to get out of here. Now. You just need to trust me on this,” Logan implored, his eyes sincere. “Look, I could have killed you a thousand times if that’s what I wanted to do.”

  “Well, that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.”

  “It’s also the truth. Now, please, give me back my sword.”

  Logan reached out his hand for his weapon. I took a deep breath, ignoring the part of me that wanted to superglue it to my hand so I’d never be defenseless again. I closed my eyes and held it out, feeling the weight of the sword leave my hand as Logan—the shy, quiet cute boy who was apparently a demonslayer, of all things—took it back. I dropped my hands to my side and opened my eyes, just in time to see Logan sliding the sword behind his left shoulder. It disappeared, as if he were slipping it into an invisible case slung on his back.

  Without the sword, I felt powerless. Raw.

  “I got someone killed,” I whispered as I tried to process the two deaths I’d just witnessed—one of which was at my own hands.

  I stared down at my hands, expecting to see them covered in blood.

  Instead, they were covered in fire.

  I screamed as I began swatting at myself to extinguish the fire that seemed to be painlessly covering my body.

  “Paige, listen to me.” Logan bent down to meet my eyes, his voice calm. Maddeningly calm. He placed his hands on either side of my face and forced me to look at him. I could see my reflection in his pupils—I was an inferno, covered in flickering flames.

  “I’m on fire! How can I listen to you when I’m on fire? And why am I not in pain?” I continued swatting at the flames. “I think I’m supposed to stop, drop and roll, right?”

  “You killed a fire demon. And now, you’ve absorbed her powers.”

  “So I’m going to be on fire forever?” I fretted, shaking my hands
and sending little embers fluttering to the floor, the linoleum extinguishing them with a small hiss. “How do I stop burning up? Am I going to be some kind of friggin’ eternal flame for the rest of my life?”

  Logan’s lips quirked up in a brief smile before he composed himself. He stood up straight, removing his hands from my face. “No, it fades after a while. And you’ll learn to turn it on and off. Look,” he began, his voice getting agitated, “I’ll explain it all. But right now, we have to go because that dead fire demon on the floor is a few minutes away from exploding. And you won’t survive that.”

  “What about Travis?” I asked in a small voice, and he frowned, his eyes darting to the pile of ash that had been my classmate.

  “A casualty. I’m sorry, Paige,” he said gently before assuming a more businesslike tone. “I know it doesn’t make it any better, but he’s not the first in this war.”

  War? My mind reeled over the word, but before I could ask, Logan continued talking, his words coming more quickly as he got more frantic.

  “I don’t feel like adding your name to the list of casualties, since I pretty much got my ass handed to me today protecting you. So we need to go now.” Logan snatched up my backpack and coat, then grabbed my hand and hauled me out of the classroom into the hallway, which was empty save for the overly sweet smoke that was making it difficult to see. We ran to the staircase, briefly pausing only once for Logan to smash his elbow into the fire alarm, breaking the glass and sounding the siren. And then he was pulling me up the stairs, to the roof.

  “Why are we going to the roof?” I yelled over the loud alarm as Logan ripped down the “No Exit” sign that dangled off a loose metal chain, blocking off roof access in the stairwell. I glanced down the stairs to the third floor, wondering where Dottie was and oddly grateful that my best friend was already dead. At least she couldn’t get hurt.

  “Quickest way to get out of here,” Logan shouted back before practically dragging me up the stairs. “And we can’t risk taking you through the school looking like that.”

  I looked down at our intertwined hands and saw that mine were still engulfed in red flames—flames that didn’t seem to burn Logan. He pressed his hand against the red alarm box next to the door.

  “Reclax ne aperik,” he muttered, repeating the harsh words several times. It didn’t sound like any language I recognized. The long silver bar across the metal door clicked quietly as it unlocked, and Logan pushed open the access door to the roof, the dark gray of an advancing winter night greeting us. A blast of cold wind set the flames covering my body to dance and flicker as we trudged through the ankle-high snowdrifts that had piled up on the roof. Well, Logan trudged. I melted all the snow in a three-feet radius as I stared down at my feet. I should have been shivering from the freezing weather, but, you know, I was on fire. My foggy head was clouded with questions. Fortunately, Logan spoke up and addressed an unspoken one.

  “Let’s go to my apartment. We’ll explain everything.”

  “We?”

  “My uncle and me.” Logan stopped, and I stared at the six-foot wall that separated the roof of the school from the apartment building next door. I wondered if Logan was going to do some kind of spell to knock it down—I was working with the general assumption that demonslayers had magical powers, given the whole invisible sword and all—but he put his hands on my hips, pulling my back close against his chest. I blinked in surprise, not sure exactly where he was going with this.

  “Hop over,” he ordered, lifting me quickly. I grabbed the concrete rim of the redbrick wall and hauled my leg over it, waiting for Logan, who hoisted himself over the wall easily. Then, we both toppled forward, the snow barely cushioning our fall as the school shook with an ear-shattering explosion.

  “Blaise,” Logan said, answering another unspoken question before standing up. “Decomposing fire demons are just as annoying dead as they are alive,” he added with a grimace.

  “Do you think anyone was hurt?” I asked, screwing my eyes shut as I thought of Travis. “Anyone else, I mean?”

  “No, the school was empty. Friday after midterms, remember? The fire will burn off quickly—it’ll likely stay confined to the classroom,” Logan said, holding out his hand to help me up. I grabbed his snowy hand and pulled myself off the roof, grunting when I tugged against the wound in my side. The agonizing pain had stopped, leaving me with a piercing, throbbing sting.

  “Just a few more roofs, and we’ll be around the corner from the school. Should be far enough away that no one will see us,” he said, before gesturing to my side as we stepped around a cell phone tower. It shimmered as it reflected the fire that still covered me. “My uncle can fix that for you. We’re lucky you only got hit with a spark.” Logan frowned.

  “All this from a spark?” I asked, wincing as I remembered the blinding pain. My fingers—that weren’t intertwined with his—reached around to my side, where there was a gaping, burned-out hole in the fabric of my shirt, exposing the side of my pale pink bra. I clutched the singed edges of the fabric, trying to pull them closed.

  “Does it hurt less now?” Logan asked, reaching out his hand to look at the wound—and then stopping short when he realized that part of my bra cup was exposed. He quickly looked away, dropping my hand. I could have sworn he blushed, but then everything looked pretty red to me at that moment.

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize—because you’re on fire and all that....” Logan stammered, turning his head.

  I awkwardly folded my arms across my chest, trying to keep my voice at a normal tone so Logan wouldn’t feel uncomfortable.

  “Yeah, it doesn’t hurt as much. Why is that?”

  “You absorbed Blaise’s power,” Logan explained as he pulled off his blue sweater, standing in the cold in his white button-down shirt. “You’ll be more tolerant of heat and fire—that includes burns,” he explained, meeting my eyes before deliberately forcing himself to stare anywhere else. He awkwardly held out the sweater, his elbow locked straight as he gripped the balled-up fabric. “You’d make an excellent fireman—um, firewoman. You know, because you’re immune to fire now,” he rambled. “Put this on. You know, because of the, um...half-naked...just put it on.”

  He waved the sweater at me, and I reached for it before pulling my flame-covered hand back.

  “Won’t this burn? Wool is really flammable.”

  “No. The fire only hurts flesh.”

  “But it melted the snow.”

  “Yeah, because they’re opposite elements. You have to focus to set fire to something nonliving. Please, just trust me and put the sweater on,” Logan said quickly, keeping his eyes aloft as he pushed the sweater closer to me. I grabbed it and slid it on quickly, careful of my injured side.

  “Are you, um, covered?” he asked, and I nodded before finding my voice.

  “Yeah, I’m decent.” I pushed up the long sleeves on the navy sweater, the extra wool bunching up at my elbows.

  “Okay, let’s go.” I followed him as he led the way across the building, his steps swift and steady. I realized Logan had my backpack on, my coat tucked into the straps. The bag hung normally, not at all affected by Logan’s magic invisible sword. Probably because the operative word there is magic, genius.

  “Hey, thanks for grabbing my backpack,” I said, my face burning with embarrassment—and, you know, fire—when I realized that I also hadn’t thanked him yet for saving my life.

  “Couldn’t exactly leave evidence that you were there.” Logan shrugged dismissively as fire truck sirens began to wail nearby.

  “Okay, we just have to make this one jump, and we’re set.” Logan had stopped talking and was waving a hand to the five-foot gap between the building we were currently on—and the roof of the building next door.

  “No,” I whispered, terrified. I backed away from edge.

  “No?” Logan’s brows p
ulled together in confusion.

  “I’m—I’m afraid of heights,” I confessed, wringing my flaming hands together.

  “Seriously?” His lips quirked up in an amused smile.

  “Yes, seriously!” I retorted, looking around the roof for another way out. Maybe I could go back to Holy Ass and leave through the front door.

  Yeah, right, like they won’t think the girl on fire has something to do with the inferno on the fourth floor.

  Logan chuckled, and I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “It’s not funny! I’m going to be stuck on this roof.”

  “Paige, I just watched you fearlessly kill a fire demon, and you’re going to tell me you’re afraid of heights?” Logan crossed his arms and cocked his head to one side, a thoroughly entertained smile on his face. “It’s a little funny.”

  “I just watched a fire demon kill a classmate while I stood there, powerless,” I replied quietly, staring down at the rivulets of melted snow running past my feet. “There’s nothing funny about any of this.”

  Logan was instantly contrite. “I’d bet that you didn’t just stand there, but you’re right. Look,” he sighed, taking off his hat to run his hand through his thick brown hair, “I’m sorry. I’m just a little jaded. Blaise isn’t my first demon.”

  “How many have there been?”

  Logan’s eyes looked up, and he bobbed his head from left to right, as if he were counting in his head.

  “Let’s just say, a lot.”

  “A lot of fire demons?”

  “Quite a few of those, actually.” He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Arrogant, snide, just nasty.”

  “What other kinds are there? Tell me about the biggest, baddest demon you beat,” I wheedled.