The Dark World

by Cara Lynn Shultz

  “So I went to Rego and proposed we make a deal for my mom. I had a pretty fearsome reputation at that point. After all, I was the big bad proditori, right? The Regents couldn’t have been happy that I was running around, some nameless, faceless killer, infiltrating hives of demons and assassinating them all. I suggested that if they returned my mom, they could strip me of my powers.”

  Seeing my confused face, Logan explained, “There’s a spell that can strip warlocks and demons of their powers. It’s painful on the part of the spellcaster and the subject of the spell. And apart from the loss of magic, it would make me physically weaker than your average human. But,” Logan said with a wistful smile, “it would have been worth it to free my mom. I figured we could live as humans somewhere on this side, start a new life. Good plan, right? I mean, it’s not like my mother had been some terrifying warrior to begin with—she was just sitting in their dungeon. What did they have to lose?

  “Rego finally got word that she’d been killed months earlier—a public execution to caution demons against associating with warlocks,” he revealed, his hand stilling on my back, clutching the fabric of my shirt in his fist. “I thought I wanted revenge before, but after that, it was all I lived for. I had nothing and I hated everyone. I hated Rego, for not being my father. I hated myself, for being the very thing I hated. I hated my mom, for being idealistic and going back to help, for picking the greater good over me. And then I hated myself all over again, because I was mad at my mom when she was dead. I begged Rego for assignments, so I could kill as many demons as possible. But it didn’t dull the pain.”

  Logan sounded lost, his voice taking on a desperate tone. “After a while, I just felt hollow—like a shell that was filled with nothing but death and rage. No wonder this isn’t the life my parents wanted for me. Hell, this isn’t the life I wanted for me,” he said, his palm rubbing against his stubbly jaw again.

  “Nothing I do will bring my parents back. What do I think I’m doing? Avenging them? I’m disgracing them. They didn’t want this for me. Spending my life fighting, killing, seeking revenge—this doesn’t honor them. It’s the worst thing I can do to their memory.

  “But this,” Logan said, taking my hands in his, “this is living. This is what I want.”

  I looked down at our joined hands, at the way they fit together perfectly.

  “Are you sure?” I whispered, trying to keep the hope out of my voice.

  “I’d finally have a life worth living,” he said, squeezing my hands for emphasis. “I could stay in school, figure out what I want to do with my life. I like English class, so maybe I could be a writer. Replace the sword with a pen, see which one really is mightier,” he added with a wink.

  “I think both are pretty potent in your hands,” I muttered, remembering his letter, and Logan smiled modestly in reply.

  “I could actually take you on a date,” he said wistfully. “Besides, someone’s gotta protect you.”

  He’d bared his soul and more tonight. He’d told me he loved me. And that should have been enough to kill the toxic voices that had started questioning the prospect of Logan staying here. For good.

  He’s only staying to protect you. He’s making all the sacrifices. He’s going to get tired of you and resent you.

  “Don’t do this just for me,” I mumbled, giving voice to my insecurities. “What if we don’t work out?”

  “Yeah, we’re going to break up because you didn’t text me back quickly enough,” he said sarcastically, squeezing my side. “You know, it would be nice if you had a little more faith in us. Life-altering relationships don’t come around all that often.”

  Logan pulled me closer, his lips just inches from mine. “This is my decision, and you’re the one overthinking it. Your initial reaction was happiness. Go with that.”

  My head and heart warred—with my heart screaming to let Logan leave it all behind and stay with me while my head whispered that he’d resent me later. But when I closed the distance between us, kissing him fiercely, I realized that logic never stood a chance against my heart.

  Chapter 14

  “YOU TALK IN your sleep.”

  Familiar arms wound around me as I stood in front of the bookshelves in the school library on Wednesday.

  I narrowed my eyes and whirled around to see Logan standing there with a playful grin. Ever since I fell asleep in his arms last Friday night, he’d been telling me that I called his name in my sleep. And walked in my sleep. And did a strip tease in my sleep.

  Fall asleep for five minutes, give the boy hours of entertainment.

  “Logan! Oh, Logan! You’re so sexy!” He mimicked my imaginary sleep-talk in a high-pitched fake girl voice, throwing his head back and shaking it from side to side as if he were in the throes of passion.

  “Is this joke ever going to get old?” I sighed, patting him in the center of his chest before pushing him away, and he pulled me back against his body, lowering his head to nuzzle my neck. Good thing we were out of sight of the librarian—since Friday night, Logan had gotten a lot more affectionate, his earlier aversion to PDA having evaporated. He’d admitted that he felt too guilty about keeping his true nature a secret—“You didn’t know what you were kissing. I felt like I was stealing!”—but now that everything was out in the open, he wasn’t shy about grabbing kisses before class. Or after class. And once, during class, when the teacher’s back was turned.

  Yep, we were one of those annoying, so-in-love-it-makes-others-want-to-vomit couples, and I loved every nausea-inducing minute of it. He even held my hand in front of my parents—making my mom smile sentimentally, and my dad, of course, turn a previously unseen shade of purple. I think it was called puce.

  “So listen,” Logan began, resting his hands on my hips as I leaned against the bookshelf behind me. “I’ll walk you home, but I won’t be able to hang out after school. Something’s going on—Rego’s asked me to stay for a meeting. I think it’s important that I be there.”

  I raised my eyebrows in surprise. When Logan first told Rego he would quit after killing Aiden, Rego’s reaction was volcanic. He accused Logan of deserting the cause. He questioned his loyalty. And although Logan didn’t delve into details, opting to skim over the particulars of Rego’s tirade—probably because it had to do with me—Logan did tell me that Rego made it a point to bring up his father.

  “Going off on his own didn’t end so well for Maxim Rex,” he’d reminded Logan, insisting on using his dad’s “warlock” name instead of the name Logan knew he’d preferred, Max. “He was a far superior soldier than you are. What makes you think you’ll fare any better?”

  That, particularly, was a low blow. It had backfired on Rego—and merely confirmed Logan’s decision.

  But in the past few days, Rego and Logan had worked out an arrangement. Logan would become something of a mercenary for the warlocks—an assassin for hire—when the warlocks were faced with a particularly difficult demon. And Logan would train a replacement, a young warlock named Tristan who was doing work for Rego in the Dark City.

  In the meantime, Logan planned on renting an apartment by hypnotizing the landlord—I’d had to talk him down from a penthouse, since people might notice the teenager with no income living like a mogul—but Logan argued that he wanted to get a job and save for college, so he had to ration out his limited funds somehow.

  Rego financed his war through alchemy; he could turn metal into gold. That’s what was hidden behind the curtain in his living room—a secret lab that gave him an endless source of income in the human world. It would be no skin off that straight, permanently-in-the-air nose to turn a friggin’ toaster to gold and hand it to Logan. “Here you go, buddy. Thanks for the years of work. This should pay for college, an apartment, and maybe buy you a new baseball cap.”

  But no. Rego just had to keep ties to Logan, and it alarmed me to no end. B
ut Logan was so entranced by his plan for college and a normal life that I kept my mouth shut.

  “Do you have any idea what the meeting could be about?” I asked, and Logan’s hands tightened on my hips.

  “It has to be about you. Even if I hadn’t planned to leave after this mission, keeping you safe is still the most important thing right now.”

  Logan shut his eyes and pressed his forehead to mine.

  “But...I’m afraid they want to use you.”

  “But what can I do, other than be used to open a portal?”

  “Cerus seems to know the Queen’s itinerary. If he finds out where the Queen is going to be at a certain time, you can be used to open a portal on the corresponding point this side. She’d be ripe for assassination,” he explained, and I shuddered at the memory of the last portal I opened. I’d been so tired...I could feel my life fading away. But if I did this one last thing—one last thing for Logan—maybe he’d finally be free of it all.

  “Maybe I should let them,” I suggested, and Logan stepped back, his face twisted in horror as he clenched his fists.

  “I’m just saying, then it would finally be over,” I reasoned, but Logan glared at me.

  “Do you honestly think it would ever end there?” he asked, squeezing his eyes shut as he pressed his fingertips to his temples. “Someone will eventually kill the person who replaces her. And then they’ll get assassinated by someone else. And so on. It will never end.”

  He opened his eyes, and they were bleak, empty. “You’d be used, and used, and used, until you were nothing.”

  “Okay. So let’s not do that, then,” I said hastily, and he let out a weary chuckle before pulling me back into his arms.

  “Yeah, let’s not,” he agreed, kissing the top of my head before drawing back.

  “Come on, it’s time for lunch.” Logan took my hand and led the way to our usual table in the back. “I know the perfect corner that’s a great spot for sneaking sandwiches and dealing with annoying dead friends.”

  But Dottie and Travis were nowhere to be found at lunch. It wasn’t entirely surprising: while Dottie had gotten over Logan’s demonic side pretty quickly, Travis seemed to be holding a grudge, suspiciously watching Logan when he thought no one was looking.

  “They’re probably off somewhere, enjoying their privacy. Lucky,” Logan muttered under his breath, glancing up at the security camera in the corner—one of several dozen now scattered throughout the school. After the fire in the detention classroom, reported vandalism in the music room—and, of course, full-on destruction of the auditorium—the school had hastily installed security cameras throughout the building, citing evidence of gang activity. Shani Robinson’s impassioned editorial in the Observer called it a “forced police state punishing the many for the evil actions of a few.”

  If only she knew just how evil.

  “Some privacy would be nice,” I agreed, my glance landing on the table next to us, where Princess Pepper and her ladies-in-hating congregated. Of course, Pepper’s eyes kept shooting my way—but I realized she didn’t have her usual “Paige Sucks” expression on her face. She looked stressed out and anxious. And that’s when I realized that her perfectly coiffed hair was messy and uncared for, her eyes ringed with shadows. She was fidgeting, shifting in her seat as she twisted the massive gold ring on her hand.

  “Wow, Pepper’s looking kind of...rough,” I commented, and Logan gave her a passing glance before waving his hand in a dismissive way.

  “Looks the same to me. Wake me when she looks like the person who hasn’t been a total bitch to you.”

  I snorted at his comment, and Logan gave me a beatific smile before curling his lip in disgust in her direction.

  “She’s probably got the flu. I’m sure she’ll use her last bit of energy to injure you somehow in gym before collapsing into a germy heap on the floor.”

  Gym was my first class after lunch, but Pepper—who usually took every opportunity to spike the volleyball at my head or blast the hockey puck right into my knees—hung back when we ran laps around the gym today, missing a prime opportunity to trip me as I rounded a corner.

  I had just finished changing when she approached me in the locker room.

  “Paige, can I talk to you for a second?” she asked as I tossed the terrycloth wristband that I wore over my bracelet back into my locker.

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  “No.”

  “It’s important,” she said, shifting her weight from foot to foot as she looked around the locker room. We were alone in this row, but I heard voices on the other side of my locker and the slamming of metal doors as my classmates headed out for their next class.

  “Then talk to me as we walk to my next class,” I replied, not wanting to be left in an empty locker room while Aiden was on the loose—or be left alone with Pepper.

  Really, which is worse?

  “No, I have to talk to you alone!” She held her palm to her chest, frowning.

  “If it’s so important you can suffer through being seen with me in public,” I snapped, resting my palms on either side of my locker as I took a deep breath.

  “It’s not that,” she said, her voice small. “I screwed up. I screwed up so bad.”

  She rubbed that giant ring on her hand and quickly shoved it underneath my nose. I slapped her hand away, but not before a heavy, bitter scent filled my senses. I instinctively held my breath as I tried to pull away, but my limbs immediately grew heavy, my shoulders dropping from the weight.

  I started to collapse, and I felt Pepper catch me, shifting me so I collapsed onto the bench in between the row of lockers, my head in my lap.

  “Hey, Pepper, you coming?” Footsteps, followed by Andie’s unmistakable voice, rang in my ears. “What’s up with Bellevue Kelly?”

  I can’t move! Why can’t I move? Help me!

  My thoughts screamed, echoing in my head, but my limbs wouldn’t budge. My muscles ached as if I were trying to move a brick wall, my body unresponsive, my lips still and parted slightly.

  “She said she got dizzy. Go on, I’ll get her to the nurse,” Pepper said, her voice shaking and weak.

  “Ew, don’t help her. Just leave her here and send the nurse in.”

  Can’t she see I can’t move? Andie, don’t leave me with her!

  “No, it’s okay. You should go,” Pepper urged.

  “Yeah, I guess if you just left her there, you’d get into trouble.” I could picture the eye roll that accompanied Andie’s statement, lips curling into her signature snotty expression.

  “Want me to stay with you?” Andie asked, sounding like she’d rather do anything else.

  “No, it’s cool,” Pepper insisted, anxious. “Just go on ahead.”

  I felt Pepper sit next to me, where my dead limbs rooted me to the bench. My breathing was slow and labored—but I was still alive. At least for now.

  I heard Andie’s steps fade, the hiss of the air brake to the locker room door and then, the sound of metal on metal as the door closed. We were alone in the locker room—and I was a prisoner in my own immobile body.

  Logan, please, please come find me!

  “I’m sorry, Paige. I had no choice,” Pepper was saying, her voice thick with sobs. “Aiden made me do it.”

  My stone body didn’t react, but inside I began to crumble at that name. I wanted to run and scream and shake Pepper until her teeth chattered, but I couldn’t move. My eyes were frozen open and starting to ache.

  “He was so charming. I thought I’d dump Matt for him—really show Matt, you know? Do it in public, right in front of everyone, and embarrass him the way he’d embarrassed me,” she confided in me, as if we were friends—as if she hadn’t just guaranteed the end of my life. “But Aiden—he’s so horrible, you don’t even know what h
e’s done to me.”

  Pepper, you fool. You don’t know anything.

  She whimpered, her voice thin with the terror she felt. And I was forced to listen to it, bound by a lifeless body made useless by whatever potion he’d instructed her to use on me.

  “He was so nice, until he gave me this ring.” She shoved it under my face again. The movement jostled me, throwing my dead body off balance. I slid to the floor, hitting the cold tile floor with a thud. I was dimly aware of a painful ache in my back, but I couldn’t feel much. It was like my entire body had been given a shot of Novocain, making me aware of my motions but feeling nothing.

  “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to knock you down!” Pepper dropped to her knees next to me. “The ring—I can’t take it off. And it hurts so much.” She sniffled, sounding like she was convulsing with sobs, but I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t see anything except the exposed steel pipes and the water-stained, pale green ceiling above my head.

  I wished I could close my eyes and force some other image into my head, so the last thing I’d see wouldn’t be this grimy ceiling, which grew blurry as my eyelids remained open.

  “He made me do it,” Pepper was whispering. “If I didn’t do this, he was going to kill me. I’m sorry. I’m just in so much pain—”

  “Well, that was the point.”

  Aiden was here. I tried to scream, but of course the only sounds were his footsteps echoing in the empty locker room, and his smug voice as he explained his invention.

  “When you put the ring on, it pierces your skin with a microscopic metal wire. It finds a vein and shimmies through it, until it reaches your heart. Brilliant, isn’t it?” he gloated, and his footsteps stopped. Probably because he paused to admire his own ingenuity.