Taste the Dark

by Tibby Armstrong

  Inside the War King’s chambers, a fire blazed in a hearth that vented itself through a network of flues under Boston’s streets. A large bed dominated, its rich hangings and rumpled blankets a fresh reminder of the intimacy that Benjamin and Tzadkiel shared. A pang of loneliness and envy tore a fresh hole in Akito’s middle, and a memory of the Morgan’s voice slithered through.

  You’re nothing. A yank to his hair exposed his neck. Your friends don’t miss you. A violating caress accompanied wounding words. If they cared even a little for you, they’d be here by now.

  From his position in a heavily carved ebony chair to the left of the fire, Tzadkiel regarded Akito. Benjamin leaned against the wall nearby, his arms crossed over the front of his carelessly laced white shirt with its voluminous sleeves, Tzadkiel’s fangs visible on a silver chain looped around his neck.

  “Lie on the table.” Tzadkiel jerked his head, indicating a long wooden table, ancient and scarred, its oak darkened by centuries of use.

  Akito complied, fear and excitement joining hands to do dizzying backflips.

  Perfect. So perfect. Right where I wanted you all along.

  “Go away,” Akito muttered, longing to sink into the moment without the Morgan’s play-by-play.

  Nyx unzipped her duffel, producing herbs that smelled like dust and decaying grasses. An orange candle and a vial of something silver came next. The herbs she bundled and laid on Akito’s chest. Dipping two fingers in the silver stuff, she anointed his forehead in rune-like strokes. His cheeks and lips followed. The ointment, or whatever it was, stank like turpentine and tightened on his skin. Lighting a candle, Nyx chanted in something that sounded like Latin, but which Akito knew wasn’t. Words swirled around him, almost visible in the air. The ritual—whatever it was—seemed to be one with which Nyx was familiar.

  Akito struggled up on his elbows, but was gently pushed back. His eyes drifted closed. Then snapped open. How would Nyx know how to turn a man into a vampire? Or a half man into a vampire? Had she been practicing? He tried to sit up again, but was met with a glare from Nyx.

  “Hold still,” she snapped.

  “I want to see what I look like,” he complained.

  “Same as you always did,” Benjamin said.

  It was true, he didn’t feel any different. Except maybe the Morgan was extra quiet in his head. That was a plus.

  Experimentally, Akito probed for his fangs with his fingertips. “Does it take a while for them to come in?”

  “For what to come in?” Nyx busied herself shoving things into her duffel.

  “Fahngs,” Akito answered around his finger.

  “You will not grow fangs from this ritual.” Tzadkiel spoke from his chair just out of Akito’s sightline.

  “Do some vampires not grow them?” Akito twisted, attempting to catch Nyx’s attention. “Is it because I started the transition myself?”

  “I purged the tainted magic you drank with the dead vampire’s blood.” Nyx plucked the herbs from Akito’ chest without looking at him. “While you’ll always be a little…different, you should be free of the crazy now.”

  “When are we holding the turning ceremony?” Akito pushed, worry raising his voice. “Did we have to do this first?”

  Tzadkiel stood, separating himself from the shadows so his bulk seemed to fill the room. Akito forced himself not to shrink back when Tzadkiel loomed over him, making his presence felt. Benjamin neared the table to stand by his side. A united front.

  “There will be no turning,” the War King said.

  “Why?” Akito sat up, traces of herbs scattering around him. “Won’t it work?”

  Nyx licked lips cracked from winter’s dry air while Benjamin stared at him, jaw jutted at a stubborn angle.

  “I cannot turn someone who violated our laws so blatantly,” Tzadkiel said. “It would mean honoring behavior that cannot be condoned or encouraged.”

  Akito laughed, disbelieving. A rustling in his head accompanied the pulling back of a curtain that had separated him from the Morgan. The man stepped into full view in his mind and laughed with him.

  “Violated your laws.” Scrubbing his face with his hands, Akito came away with silver paint—some part of Nyx’s ritual. “Which laws are those? The ones you wouldn’t fucking have any more if I hadn’t brought you your precious kylix?”

  Akito frowned. The words came from his mouth, but they weren’t his own. Or at least not how he would have said them. He said what the Morgan dictated to him, nothing more and nothing less, when and as the man saw fit.

  “You tried to turn yourself,” Benjamin explained, ever helpful. Not.

  So unappreciated. Undervalued. You were valued when you were with me, weren’t you boy?

  “I fucking know what Tzadkiel meant.” Akito stood, scattering herbs everywhere as he faced down the man he’d once considered his best friend. “What I don’t understand Benjamin is how my risking my life to save the mora constitutes violating its laws. You’re the one who let him”—he pointed to Tzadkiel—“drain you to fuel his magic and his revenge. And now you allow him to question the legality of my actions?”

  The Morgan threw his head back and laughed. Those are your words now, not mine.

  “Watch your tone,” Tzadkiel warned. “My consort does not allow me liberties. His knee bends to me, not the opposite.”

  Benjamin’s brows rose above his mirrored sunglasses at that, but amazingly, he didn’t contradict Tzadkiel.

  “As you’ve just admitted, you’re not my king, nor are you ever likely to be.” Snarling, Akito turned on Tzadkiel. “So, fuck off, vampire.”

  Tension snapped through the air like a sheet hung in a stiff breeze. Benjamin, his Adam’s apple bobbing, rested his left hand on Tzadkiel’s arm, the knuckles emblazoned with his M E R C Y tattoo clearly showing.

  “You are banished from this mora, Akito James.” The War King’s sentence was spoken with such regal quietude that it took Akito a moment to parse its meaning.

  “What?” There was no way he’d heard that right. “You can’t be serious. Where would I go?” He looked to Nyx and Benjamin. “You’re my friends. Do something.”

  “I never speak a sentence I do not carry out,” Tzadkiel answered, clearly unmoved. “You are banished from our sight until such a time as you have made recompense for your crimes against the mora and have begged forgiveness for your disrespect to me and to my consort. I have tolerated you among my mora for too long as it is.”

  “But…” He looked to Benjamin.

  There had never been a time when he, Nyx, and Benjamin hadn’t been a makeshift family. Hell, they’d even been each other’s first fumbling kisses in a punch-drunk game of truth or dare. Didn’t any of that matter? Didn’t he matter? Benjamin, jaw clamped so hard it looked as if it might shatter, didn’t speak. Clearly, he had known this was coming.

  Tell him. The Morgan commanded him. Tell him how he is the War King’s whore.

  “What’s the matter, Benj, too afraid of your new lord and master to stick up for your friends?” Akito spat, trying to rid himself of the venomous taste in his mouth, but only unleashed the Morgan’s words. “Or does loyalty not matter to you anymore now that you’ve had a taste of royal vampire cock?”

  Tzadkiel was on Akito so quickly, Akito didn’t have time to draw another breath. Back against the wall, he was held up by his throat in an unrelenting grip. The vampire’s growl vibrated over Akito’s cheek, a wordless threat.

  “Let him go, Tzadkiel,” Benjamin said, quietly. “Please.”

  Slowly, with obvious reluctance, Tzadkiel released Akito so he slid, gasping, down the wall onto his ass. Rubbing his throat, Akito glared in Benjamin’s direction as the War King slammed out of the room in the greatest show of temper Akito had ever seen from him off the battlefield.

  “Will you stay?” Benjamin directed the question to Nyx.

  “I can’t.” Nyx wrapped her arms around Benjamin and gave him a bone creaking hug before pulling away. “You going to b
e okay?”

  Benjamin smiled ruefully. “Not going to lie. This whole kneeling to the king thing isn’t exactly my favorite part of this relationship.”

  Nyx nodded her understanding, but said, “He loves you.”

  “Seems like he’s kneeling to your whims just fine,” Akito snapped, barely recognizing his own voice.

  Benjamin finally faced Akito, the mirrored sunglasses he wore to hide the scarred skin over his missing eyes reflecting Akito’s fun-house image back to him.

  “I wish you could see that you’re enough,” Benjamin said.

  “Ironic words, coming from a blind man.” Someone had moved Akito’s lips and the Morgan’s evil anger had come out, if not in voice, then in sentiment.

  Red flooded Benjamin’s cheeks.

  With horrified disbelief, Akito realized that the Morgan, after Nyx’s ritual, controlled him fully now. Whatever she’d done with the poison in his blood, the darkness had shifted to make room for something even more sinister. The apology he tried to issue was quickly swallowed as the Morgan stoppered his mouth.

  “You know why I didn’t fight Nyx wanting to leave with you?” Benjamin asked, arms folded, chin jutted.

  Akito swallowed convulsively. “No. Why?”

  “So there’d be someone to take care of you, you self-destructive shit.”

  Surprise and humiliation slapped Akito hard. He spun on his heel and slammed out of the room before Nyx could see the tears that had sprung to his eyes. Nyx caught up with him at street level and yanked Akito around.

  “What?” Akito bit out.

  “He really is trying to help, in his own way,” she said.

  Akito pushed both hands through his hair and closed his eyes. “I only did what I thought was best for everyone.”

  Oh, poor you, the Morgan sniveled at him. Then snarled, You did what I wanted you to do. Don’t credit yourself with so much initiative.

  Akito stumbled backward. The Morgan had wanted him to drink the vampire’s blood?

  The cup was a small sacrifice to gain such a loyal spy.

  Nyx tilted her head, considering Akito. “We just want you to stop spending so much time trying to become something you’re not. That’s what got you into this mess.”

  “That’s fucking rich coming from you.” Akito gawped at her, sputtering. “You spent the last fifteen years hiding from everyone behind an illusion, and now you’re going to give me a lecture?”

  The words were his own, and the Morgan sat up in Akito’s mind so fast that the world wobbled.

  Who is she? What illusion do you speak of?

  Akito swore to himself. He had been so careful. Nyx’s bracelet generally hid her and her magic from the Morgan and Lady Morgana—its sole purpose. Now that Akito had directly referred to that illusion, bringing the Morgan’s attention to her, the Morgan would be able to dismantle its puzzle.

  “I’m sorry.” The wind ruffled Nyx’s hair, making it stand up in soft spikes. “I miss who you used to be. You don’t have to don a cape or have freaking superpowers for us to love you.”

  “I’ve always been like this.” He latched onto the diversion, leading the conversation in a safer direction. “The first time you met me I was in a cape.”

  He’d been putting on costumes and roles, searching for his identity for as long as he could remember. Akito was the closest he’d come to finding one that had fit.

  “I don’t care what you wear so long as you’re still you.” Nyx shook her head and the bells jingled with incongruous merriment. “Since you drank from the kylix it’s like you’re either angry or trying to disappear. I don’t even know you anymore, Akito. You have to at least try.”

  I recognize this person…

  Akito felt the veil he’d always managed to keep around his interactions with Nyx tear down the middle.

  Bring them to me. Now.

  Akito shook his head, aghast at the Morgan’s demand.

  Shall I remind you what it means to defy me?

  Pain knifed through Akito’s skull, nearly bringing him to his knees. He clenched his teeth and exerted his will, not on being himself—whoever that was—but on keeping Nyx safe.

  “I’m leaving.” Blood soured his mouth, his larynx tearing as he forced the words past the jagged glass in his throat. “Get away from me and don’t ever fucking come near me again. You and Benjamin belong together. Vampire suck-ups. Both of you.”

  A surprised pause accompanied a series of dark-lashed blinks and the stubborn tilt of Nyx’s pointed chin. “Playing nasty didn’t work when Ben did it last year, and it sure as hell isn’t going to work on me now.”

  Damn it. She wasn’t going to leave. She had to fucking get away from him before he was forced to bring her to her father.

  “If you think I’m still going to call you a friend after you chose Benjamin and the mora over me?” Sweat dripped into Akito’s eyes. “Think again.”

  “Akito—” She reached out to him.

  He shoved her back with both hands to her chest. “I will tell him who you are, and where you are. I swear it,”

  “You wouldn’t…” Eyes wide, Nyx shook her head, and it broke his heart. “No. I don’t believe you’re cruel enough to tell him.”

  In fact, he already had, but not on purpose. It wasn’t difficult to add an extra helping of truth to his lies. “Try me.”

  Nyx whirled in a flare of skirts and bells, flying through the door to the M. Steinert building as if a pack of wild werewolves snarled at her heels. Akito bolted across the street and into the Common. The Morgan punished him, making each step feel as if he walked on flaming tar. He tried to outrun the sensation, but it followed him. There would be no escape and no turning back for him now. He had two directions open to him: forward…or down.

  Chapter 3

  Father Time never bothered to wind the clock of the spirit world. Some days, Lyandros catalogued each second. Others, he blinked, and a day or month passed without his recalling any difference between one sunset and the next. Ten hours or ten weeks might have gone by since he had first seen Akito on Longfellow Bridge. The only thing Lyandros knew for certain was that he’d spent a great deal of his recent existence staring toward Beacon Hill, awaiting the return of the dark-haired stranger.

  Pacing the bridge, he tried out the name. “Akito.”

  Intrigued with the sharp-edged melody, he repeated the exercise, this time attempting to soften it. “Ah-key-toe.”

  No. The staccato was better. Quick and bright, it tripped off the teeth like a love bite.

  He paced back to his tower along the wall. Dazzling blue, the Charles River curved gently into the distance. White sails dotted the water. Boats zipped past each other in chase. The spring breeze would lift Akito’s hair and whip it just as playfully, brushing it across his lips.

  Spring…

  Lyandros stopped, mid-pivot. It was spring? When had that happened?

  White blossoms billowed on trees along the riverbank. Pedestrians no longer wore heavy jackets, and the slush that had been kicked up by tires all winter had melted. The daffodils were far enough along, their yellow faces bobbing in the breeze at the waterside park, that he knew the season had changed some weeks ago without his noticing. In his mind’s eye, it had still been late winter, and Akito had stood on the bridge with him. Fixated on the man, Lyandros had relived the experience over and over.

  “Idiot.” Lyandros paced away from his tower in agitation.

  A mentor had taken him under his wing when he’d first died—the man’s name escaped Lyandros now. What Lyandros did recall, however, was the man’s final admonishments before he and Lyandros had parted.

  “Lose the present, and you will lose yourself,” his mentor had said. “Be vigilant. Keep to lighted paths.” Lyandros repeated the instructions aloud, reminding himself of their finer points. “Avoid wraiths and unhappy spirits lest their violence rend your soul beyond repair. Behave in death as you did in life, and your soul will remain whole longer.”

&nb
sp; He’d been so careful to remain moored in the present. All it had taken to swing his attention away from the fixed point of his horizon had been a fleeting glimpse of a man. He passed a hand over his face, the energy of his palm rippling over features he could no longer feel.

  “Akito!”

  Lyandros whipped his head up at the female voice. Bright as pennies and sweet as nectar, its melody was unmistakable. Nyx ran down the sidewalk toward the spot where Lyandros stood. Following the angle of her attention, Lyandros looked to the bridge’s opposite side. On the wrought iron rail, Akito stood. He didn’t appear to have registered his friend’s cry, fixated as he seemed on the water below. Clearly, he wasn’t there to regard the bridge’s finer architectural details from an alternate angle. He intended to jump. While the bridge wasn’t terribly high, and surviving such a fall was conceivable, Lyandros had seen a man jump to his death near this very spot. It had been a gruesome affair, not in the least a painless end.

  Impulse told Lyandros to run to him—to yank Akito back from the edge and wrap him tightly into a protective embrace. The man’s stance and dress—his samurai coat and the top knot decorating his hair, the way he clutched the hilt of the sword sheathed by his side—held something of ritual. Was the man committing to a warrior’s death? A sacrifice?

  Lyandros started forward, but reality found purchase. There wasn’t a blasted thing to be done—at least not on his part. He was dead. He could scream until he was hoarse. No one would see or hear him. Fixated on a horror he couldn’t prevent, he tucked himself into a niche near where Akito stood and did something he hadn’t done for a very long time. He prayed. Why he believed the gods would answer now, he couldn’t say, but it was the only option that remained. Every ounce of will he possessed, he channeled into the old ways, the old language, he had been taught as a child.

  “Father Zeus, heed my prayer. A mortal is in peril. Tell me what I should do, and it shall be done.”

  Simple enough to be thought in a moment, and clear enough to be heard, Lyandros voiced his words of supplication, cupped his hands to the heavens, and waited. Time moved sideways. Physical reality slowed. Nyx’s approach was revealed in frame-by-frame detail, and Akito’s coat billowed behind him in barely-noticeable increments.