Dark Light of Day (49 page)

“Don’t bother,” I said. “Nothing burns here.”

Ari stared at me and said nothing. But the look on his face was enough to frighten me. Because he suddenly looked unsure of himself. He glanced around, taking in the broken rows of headstones, the decaying vegetation, and the ramshackle, collapsed grave keepers’ house at the edge of the clearing.

“Noon, something’s wrong.”

“I know,” I said, turning toward the house. But Ari grabbed my arm.

“
Nothing burns here?
Does our magic even work here?”

“I don’t know,” I said, staring into his eyes. Thankfully, his uncertainty melted into a mask of something I’d never seen. As I looked at him, I felt like I was looking in a mirror.
Battle rage,
I thought.
That’s what I’m seeing; that’s what I’m feeling.

Fear and ferocity coursed through my veins in equal parts. “If our magic doesn’t work here, neither does hers,” I said, reaching for a sharp stick.

As we approached the house, I grew uneasy. I was well aware of the toxic effect of my surroundings. But this other thing I sensed was some niggling detail in my own subconscious. I ignored the feeling though. I didn’t want any distractions. I concentrated on opening my signature as wide as possible so I could sense any demons who might be hiding. Ari’s signature bumped up against mine, boiling hot, like the burning oil medieval Hyrkes had poured down on their enemies.

We reached the house and Ari went in first.

The dark was the first thing I noticed. Last time, strikes of lightning had periodically lit up the interior of the house, guiding my way. This time, it was pitch-black and eerily, intensely, silent. The rickety door slammed behind me and I jumped, bumping into Ari’s back. I fumbled in my jacket pocket and pulled out a good old-fashioned electric hand
torch. I switched it on and a white circular glow splashed across the floor sending hundreds of little black bugs skittering toward the walls.

The cold, wet, poisoned feel of the place was just as pronounced as before. We crept along the hallway and I fought the urge to cling to Ari’s shirt. Entering this place purged my battle rage the way influenza flushed the intestines. My middle felt hollow and my limbs shook.

When we stepped into the back room where the tomb was, I heard breathing, but there was no accompanying demon signature, so I knew we’d found Night and Peter. I waved the torch frantically, splashing light across the piles of books, bells, carvings, and cradles that were still scattered throughout the room. In the corner, opposite the coffin lid, I saw them.

Peter was bound and gagged but otherwise looked fine. It was relatively easy to subdue one Angel if you caught him by surprise. Night, on the other hand, looked like he’d been tortured. His shirt was gone. Deep welts, oozing gashes, and purpling bruises covered every inch of his chest. His face looked like a gargoyle’s with fat lips, swollen eyes, and puffy, bloated cheeks. I gave a muffled sob and ran to him, kneeling on the floor in front of him.

“Night,” I cried, my voice breaking.

He didn’t respond. I pressed my fingers against his neck and let my torch crash to the floor. Instantly, the light went out. I felt a weak pulse beneath my fingers and shook him, none too gently now that I knew he was alive. If we could get him out and into the woods, Bryony could heal him.

I heard Ari pick up my fallen light. He shook it as Peter screamed something incomprehensible beneath his gag. My stomach dropped as I felt a familiar signature. Hot pinpricks of pain needled my skin and a hornetlike buzz sounded in my ears. Cold sweat pooled at the base of my spine and, so great was the signature’s psychological effect on me, I swiped at my ear, suddenly scared of what might be swarming in the darkness.

No. It couldn’t be,
I thought.

I heard Ari smack the torch against his palm. It relit and I turned my head. Sure enough, Nergal stood in the doorway.
His standing there made no sense,
I thought,
unless he was the demon responsible for abducting Night and Peter.

I reached over and ripped the gag out of Peter’s mouth. Immediately, he started casting a spell but Nergal struck him with an electric bolt of magic before he could complete it. Peter fell to the floor, smoking and stiff.

“Peter!” I shrieked, dropping to the floor. Beneath me, Peter lay still, his eyes open and unblinking, his fists curled like crow’s feet, his lips frozen in the snarl of his half-cast spell.

Behind me, I felt a discharge of electric power from Ari and Nergal that was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. If this is what it felt like when two waning magic users fought without using fire, I couldn’t imagine what Armageddon must have been like. No wonder Heaven had fallen.

I shielded Peter’s body with my own, wondering if that would even help. Night was now too far away for me to reach. Light flashed irregularly as the fallen electric torch was kicked and spun, stopped and kicked again. Nergal’s hands locked around Ari’s neck and squeezed. Ari instinctively tried to defend himself with fire, which didn’t work. Nergal threw another bolt of electricity at Ari, barely missing him. Ari tried to blast back but his earlier exhaustion slowed his reflexes. The two struggled, magically and physically, straining, sweating, joints popping, signatures grinding, until Nergal finally cracked his forehead against Ari’s face. I heard a wet, pulpy, crunching sound. Blood flowed from Ari’s nose and my vision swam.

Ari was seconds from passing out.

I grabbed the sharp stick I’d picked up from the ground outside. Blood pounding in my ears, I leapt onto Nergal’s back and plunged the stick into his neck. He howled and threw me off. I crashed into the coffin lid and its enormous weight fell on me. I felt a popping sound in my arm and, suddenly, my elbow felt as if someone had shot an arrow through the joint.

I shrieked, but somehow kept my wits enough to remember not to throw fire. Instead, learning from Nergal, I blasted the coffin lid with an electric bolt. I expected it to go flying, so great was the blast I’d sent toward it, but it barely moved. The weight continued to press down on my chest. I panted. Nergal pulled the now grisly red and wet stick from his neck and turned toward Ari, who swayed on his feet. I howled beneath the coffin lid, twisting my body, thrashing my legs, desperately trying to get free. Tears coursed down my cheeks. The frustration and pain were driving me mad.

Nergal advanced on Ari and I pleaded to Luck, thinking that I’d do anything,
anything
, if he would help us. I was
this close
to praying to the Savior too, so great was my fear and desperation, when another demon crawled out of the open mouth of the tomb.

My mouth went dry. I stopped struggling and all thoughts fled.

It was Lamia and she was covered in blood, not the fresh, red blood that covered us, but rather the putrid, decaying blood of things that had already died. The smell of it, and the feel of her, was so awful, my stomach seized. I ground my teeth and somehow managed to wrench my legs free from the coffin lid.

Oh, great Luck below, she was the reason for this place’s poisoned feel.

“You live here,” I said, shaky with comprehension. I struggled to my feet and leaned against the wall. Nergal and Ari broke off and circled each other like two bulls, or two demons, ready to lock horns again.

“This is your home,” I said to Nergal. “
This
is the spot of land you couldn’t burn.”

Until now, I realized, I’d been viewing everything through a pair of unfocused binoculars. I’d had two fields of vision, two areas of focus: my demon client and his aging, insane wife; and the demon who’d been attacking and abducting Mederies. The two views suddenly snapped together forming one singular, frightening perspective—they were one and the same.

There was no Vigilia,
I thought breathlessly. Or rather, there had been at one time, but she was just as gone as the
Demon Register
had said she was. Who knew where she was? Dead? Off with her demon lover, Christos? It didn’t matter. Because I suddenly knew which demon was responsible for the Mederi attacks: Lamia. The demon who’d been coughing up corn dolls on Bryde’s Day. The demon who’d said the one thing,
the only thing
, she wanted was a child.

Nergal saw that I’d figured it out and he smiled at me, but just like a demon, his expression looked both sinister and sad at once. Like that optical illusion of the young maiden… or her old Mederi midwife.

“You said you walked for miles,” I said, my voice almost dreamlike. My thoughts floated like unanchored buoys on a sea of disbelief, recollection, and awe. “You said that hours after sunset you finally found the spot of land that refused your touch—your fire. You saw a woman there, a beautiful woman.”
Drawing water from a well,
I thought.
But it hadn’t been a well. It had been the tomb.

I turned to Lamia. It was almost impossible to believe she’d once been beautiful. In her hand, she clutched a ragged corn doll. The doll’s dress was made of green wool scraps. It had real hair, hair that was a coppery gold color, and real blood smeared all over it. I swallowed. Had Laurel Scoria had red hair?
If not Laurel, then Amaryllis Apatite,
I thought. I clenched my fists, feeling absolute impotence.

Why hadn’t I seen it?
The corn dolls were mere effigies of Lamia’s true offerings.

“I told Nergal not to contact the school clinic,” Lamia said, stroking the doll’s hair, “but he wouldn’t listen.” Her stroking became more manic and she raised the doll to her face and bared her pointed teeth at it. “I told him
you
couldn’t help,” she said, addressing the doll though, not me. “How could you?” She shook the doll viciously, causing its head to bobble up and down and scattering dried bits of blood everywhere.

“You’re infested with death magic,” she shrieked. “Same
as me.” And then she began crooning and stroking the doll again, patting its head and smoothing its hair.

I bit my knuckles to keep from screaming.

How long had Lamia been Luck’s grave keeper? Since the beginning? Since the Apocalypse? Or had she been spawned in his tomb in the centuries since? When had she made her first offerings to him? What were they? A silver bell? A lock of hair? What had she asked for in return? Beauty? Youth? When had simple offerings turned to live sacrifices?

When had she lost her mind?

I always thought I saw Luck’s presence in every part of Halja life, except here. Nothing about this place felt right; from the moment I had stepped foot here, everything had felt wrong. It seemed that so much old magic had seeped into the ground; new magic couldn’t even work anymore. This land seemed stuck in an unnatural eternal loop, like my mother’s evergreens. But how could I find the cure when I didn’t know the cause? Was it Lamia? Had a murderess come here to feed off of, and sustain, the remaining malignancy of war? Or was it the battleground itself? Had a young, devoted grave keeper been driven mad by the poisoned ground she was forced to guard? Was Lamia as much a victim of this place as everyone else who had died here?

I barked out a short laugh, on the edge of hysteria. We’d never know. None of these questions would ever be answered. I must have been mad myself to ever have thought I’d help clients like this by studying law books or legal precedents.

Despite all the unanswered questions though, I knew there was only one option, killing her. I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t want to be a coward about it either. But as I prepared to send her a lethal blast, I made the mistake of looking at her. Lamia crooned to her corn doll as if it was a child and I chickened out. In that instant, I felt only pity. Lamia looked up at me and must have guessed what I’d intended. She was stark raving mad but her survival instincts were still intact.

I stalled when I should have thrown strong. If I hadn’t
hesitated, Lamia wouldn’t have had time to defend herself and she would be dead. Instead, I was the one who was going to die.

Seeing your own death approach is an interesting experience. Though I’d spent a considerable portion of my life shunning my true nature, I’d always assumed mine would be fiery. There was a sense of poetic justice about it: live by the flame; die by the flame. So it was surprising to see Lamia throw a spray of frost in my direction. But those little frozen magic crystals were the breath of death. I knew it as sure as I knew Lucifer’s Morning Star would be the last star in the sky snuffed out by dawn.

Ari must have known it too because he threw himself in my direction. In the next instant, several things happened at once. Peter shook loose of the effects of Nergal’s attack. His voice cracked but was capable enough. I felt the weight of a quickly cast protective spell fall over me like full plate armor. A second later, Ari’s body crashed into mine. He landed on top of me, knocking the breath out of my lungs. For a moment I could do no more than stare numbly at the ceiling. When conscious thought returned, however, my immediate reaction was one of horrifying, utter, gut-wrenching denial. I refused to believe what had just happened. I wouldn’t accept it. I couldn’t.

There was just no way I could watch Ari die. But Luck didn’t care. The frost settling over Ari had an immediate effect. The tiny grains of magic burned through his clothes, and from the look on his face, his skin as well. He grimaced as if he’d been doused with lye. His breath became hollow and raspy. He started bleeding from his nose and mouth. He grunted in pain as he shifted off of me and tried to turn away.

“No!” I cried, grabbing him and turning him onto his back. I ran my hand across his chest, as if I could somehow put him back together.
No not Ari please not Ari please not Ari anyone but him please Luck no not him no no—No!

From the corner, I heard Peter cast a spell. I felt Lamia and Nergal’s signatures dim. It would have been blessed relief
if Ari weren’t dying before my eyes. I looked up. The two demons appeared frozen, but otherwise fine. Lamia gazed adoringly down at her corn doll infant, her face suffused with joy. Nergal had been caught mid-shift, horns and claws barely breaching the surface of his skin.
The stasis spell,
I thought. Jonathan Aster’s ancient spell would buy us time, but how long?