Darkbound (The Legacy of Moonset) (22 page)

I didn’t expect to learn anything new from Luca. But
maybe staring at him would somehow make things make more sense. Was that how Moonset had killed the last Abyssal Prince? Did they kill the girl, and the demon along with her? Was that really all I would have to do to stop the Prince from hurting Justin and the others?

But what if I was wrong?

I stopped short of Luca’s door, stilled by the sound of someone’s voice. Someone vaguely familiar.

“Almost time, now, little Luca. Just a few more hours and everything will fall into place just the way it was meant to. All you have to do is just keep sleeping, and I’ll wait for your cousin.”

I knew that voice. Masculine, but not too masculine. Beaten down and weathered.

“Are you coming in, Malcolm? Or just going to lurk in the hallways all night?”

I stepped into the doorway, and saw Matthew Dugard, the curio shop owner, sitting on the edge of Luca’s bed, a small book in his lap.

“Nice to see you again, son,” Matthew said pleasantly. “I was just telling Luca why I sold him this little ditty.” He waved the book in my face. “When you think about it, it’s impressive. He almost broke the town, and all it took was a couple of pages from
Twenty-three
.”

“What is that?”

Matthew looked surprised. “It’s a primer to the black arts, obviously. The very volume that young Luca Denton turned to in an hour of crisis.”

“And why do you have it? Where did it come from?”

“Two very good questions,” Matthew said. He lacked the amiable presence he had in his store, behind the mask there was nothing but a bitter weariness. “The answer to the first question is that I’m taking it back. But haven’t you figured out the answer to the second already?”

“You sold it to him.”

“I
gave
it to him.” Matthew peeled the hearing aid from his ear and now his smile was cold and cruel. “Close the door, son. Let’s have a chat.”

t
w
e
n
t
y
-e
i
g
h
t

The most insidious part of Moonset was the way they preyed upon the weak minded. So many soldiers recruited to their cause were hurting
and damaged. They made the perfect
sleeper agents, hidden in plain sight.

Moonset: A Dark Legacy

“You gave Luca the book.” I didn’t close the door. I wasn’t an idiot.

“It was a gift,” Matthew demurred. “Given to me to hand over to just the
right
individual.”

The hearing aid was a tiny worm of plastic on the ground between us. “And that?” I asked. “Some sort of game?”

Matthew set to adjusting the blankets around Luca, pulling them snug and tight up against his skin, and tucking
them in around the sides. “A test. The great and powerful Illana Bryer barely had a second thought for me. You know, I hoped to be caught by now. I never thought it would take this many years. But I was faithful. So very faithful.”

I’d heard fervor like that before. The ecstasy in the words, the chaotic light in the eyes. Moonset had been many things, but one of the worst parts was the cult that grew up around them. An army of lunatics who lived and died for them. I took a step back. “I’m getting Quinn.”

“Do you even know what it’s like? To be smarter than everyone around you? I’ve waited for
years
to be discovered. And for what? Nothing. I gave Luca the book, blatant as sin, and
still
they didn’t find me.”

“He’s in a coma.”

Matthew nodded sadly, and set the book carefully where Luca’s lap would be, if he were awake. It was almost like he’d been reading just before he fell asleep, and the book had been left forgotten in his lap. “After all I did for him, and he couldn’t do this one little thing for me.”

“Why is it so important that you get caught?”

“What good is a movement without a martyr?” Matthew walked away from the bed. “I could have gone to my glory with my head held high—taken down with him and killed without ever admitting everything. But he had to go to sleep and ruin everything.” He shook his head, hands constantly in motion, brushing his pants, touching his shirt, scratching his face. “He’s never going to wake up, you know.”

“I figured.” He wouldn’t wake up as long as the Abyssal Prince was up and moving.

A faint smile, one that might have been filled with shades of mockery, crossed his lips. There was a crank for the window, which he spun around until it wouldn’t spin any further. Hospital windows didn’t open very far, most likely so that patients couldn’t hurt themselves. A tiny whisper of air escaped into the room. The humor in his voice intensified. “Did you?” Whatever the joke was, I wasn’t in on it.

“It was you, wasn’t it? You were the one who summoned the Abyssal Prince last time. You were the one that started all of this.”

He pushed his fingers between the slats of the shades and spread himself a little window, peeking out into the afternoon light. “You
would
think that, wouldn’t you? Oh, no, I was a late recruit. They asked me to stay behind. Told me they’d be in touch. And for
years
I kept my beliefs to myself. Prayed every night for your father to make me strong, and to Sherrod for wisdom. Ten
years.
And then
he
showed up on my doorstep and told me what had to happen. God, he was magnificent. Their living heir. He made me a true disciple.”

“Cullen Bridger.” The terrorist trained by Moonset. The one who had hunted us our entire lives. He’d sent a wraith to kidnap us back in Kentucky. And all the while, he’d had someone working for him here in Carrow Mill.

Matthew inhaled at the sound of his name, sighing like he’d smelled the sweetest fragrance. “I know his true name. He told me. The name you know is just a mask. He is so much more than that.”

A breeze worked its way into the room from the crack in the window, and with it, the smell of something sharp and harsh carried to my nose. Gasoline. Not a lot, but enough.

“You think if you kill Luca, that it will send the Abyssal back to his prison?” The man’s smile was slow, beaming, and utterly unhinged. “Let’s test that theory out,” he said, producing a packet of matches like a magician coaxing a dove from a hat. And with just as practiced a motion, he struck one against the back, and when it caught fire he held it up to the rest so that the entire packet started to burn. All that, in the time it took me to process what was happening.

He threw the packet onto Luca’s bed. The blankets caught fire easily.

I pressed further into the room, but Matthew was there to block me before I got more than two feet inside. He was stronger than he looked. Or I was weaker than I thought. He had no problem pinning my arms behind me and shoving me against the wall.

“Come on, Malcolm. Don’t you see?” He pulled my chin to the right, forcing me to see the fire growing thicker, the smoke billowing up darker and darker.

“You have to be
tested
, Malcolm. You have to
earn it.
Come on. Use your magic. Save the boy. This is your chance to be everything that fate has designed for you. Take up the mantle.”

“I’m not a hero,” I growled. I knew spells to start little fires, same as Cole, but I didn’t know anything that would help put them
out.
If Justin were here, he could have stopped it. Jenna too.

But I wasn’t entirely helpless. I reached deep down inside, to the place where the Coven bond attached to me, and reached for the magic that wasn’t quite magic. It was faster than instinct, I reached for it at the same time as it reached for me, two missed connections that finally came together in a ray of light.

I opened my mouth as wide as I could, and a sound deeper than anything inside of me emerged, a sound more real than anything I’d ever said before. The word was a hazy rush in my ears, I couldn’t even say for sure what it was that I’d spoken. My body reacted on autopilot, trembling as the word tried to force its way out.

Whatever the curio shop guy had done to me, the spell sliced right through it. Cut through his magic and scattered the shreds into the air. My strength returned even as his vanished, and I pushed him off me easily. He stumbled to the ground, collapsed into a puddle of himself.

A wind like a hurricane swept through the room, snuffing the flames and throwing the blankets clear from Luca’s body. The curtains ripped away from their rods, the other hospital bed crashed against the window, and Matthew shot against the far wall. Somewhere out in the hall there was the sound of sirens, screeching noises that were dull to my ears compared to the roaring inside. It tore away the scent of burning cotton and cooked meat, but not fast enough.

Energy buzzed through me, a surge of endorphins and adrenaline that could have made anything possible. But before I could do anything, before I could try to find help for Luca—oh god, his legs!—there was a new sound. The angry clash of bells, vibrating the air itself.

“Thank you,” Matthew whispered from the floor as the Abyssal Prince strode into the room. The sounds from the hallway dwindled and muted in his wake, and the view of the hallway became flat and acrylic, a painting instead of a door. There were tears in Matthew’s eyes, and he prostrated himself down on hands and knees. Worshipful.

Luca still slept, despite the fact that his legs were ravaged. But the fire had been caught before it spread too far, and the equipment breathing for him continued to do its job.

“Do not thank me, mule. You put your hands on my human.” The Prince’s lips drew back in a sneer.
Contempt
and
fury
boiled the room alive. “
Beg.
”

“Forgive me!”

The hollow cry didn’t do anything to appease the Prince. The sneer widened so much that it exposed the silver teeth inside his mouth.
“Weakness.” The disgust in his tone forced Matthew down onto his belly. The man mewled, a pitiful sound full of keening and despair. The Prince’s words crippled him. They never crippled me, and I was just a bystander.

The Prince cocked his head to the side, then glanced over a shoulder. “Alas, they come. The boring ones.” His mouth opened wider, a piercing vibrato that ripped through me and dragged the three of us from the room. A prism of light swept over my vision as we were ripped out of the world.

We emerged in the curio shop, dim and full of shadows. Afternoon had just barely started at the hospital, but now the world was full-on dark. Normally, when the Prince moved me from place to place, it was instantaneous. This was the first time there was a disconnect. Why?

From somewhere deeper in the building came the sound of canned laughter, a laugh track to an old comedy. The Prince stood next to me, hand on my shoulder. “Be calm,” he whispered in my ear, and
calm
washed through my body, a pleasant drug that eased my worries.

Without the lights, everything inside the shop seemed more insidious and macabre. Masks on the walls glared with frenzied hunger, statues on the floor seemed to move and jump at will. There were movements out of the corner of my eye, but stillness wherever I turned.

“Now then,” the Prince straightened beside me. He leapt onto one of the display cases and crossed one leg over the other. “You were about to expose your every squirming thought about my dear, departed sister. And of course your role in her murder.”

“It was me. I killed Kore.” Matthew smiled as the confession slid past his lips. He still had that same look of worship on his face, despite being humbled on the ground only seconds ago. “I cast the invocations to the Abyss. I cleared the path so she could escape. I brought her here.” And then his smile grew wider.
Hopeful.
“She died because of me, and now you’ve come. My reward is at hand.”

The Prince at my shoulder was a silent creature, for so long that the ticking of a dozen grandfather clocks stacked along the walls started to drive me crazy. Each was just a fraction of a section off of the rest, so it was a constant buzzing of ticks. A stopwatch without any end.

“Lies,” the Prince said finally. “You are a stained spirit, a worm indeed. But you are
lying.
Haven’t I said how much I despise a liar, dear Malcolm?”

He patted me on the shoulder, and the touch sent a thrilling electricity running across my skin. Excitement poured through my every vein. I would listen to his voice forever if I could. He could read to me from Adele Roman’s book, all about my father’s crimes, and I would not mind. “You … don’t?”

He beamed down at me and my heart thudded in my chest. He was pleased. I’d given him the right answer. My heart leapt in my chest and I couldn’t stop smiling.

“Not a question, pet,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

Matthew looked between us, and I saw something unpleasant in his expression. I made a sound, something that must have been worrying enough that my Prince turned away and looked back at the man sprawled over his own floor.

“No,” the Prince continued, “I’m not looking for
you
. I’m looking for the crawling things in your head. Secrets. Worms oozing all over themselves. Dirty minds. Not like my Malcolm’s. Rigid and sparkling like a diamond. At least it was,” and again, the fury in his voice was a tangible thing. It caused all the lamps and candles in the building to catch and bathe the store in light.

I was protected from the onslaught by the hand on my shoulder. Only the emotions he wanted me to feel dripped from his fingers into my skin, and all others washed over me without leaving a trace of moisture.

Part of me knew I was under his spell as much as any of his victims, but I just didn’t
care.
I would be under his spell forever if I could. Why would anyone want to exist otherwise? When he touched me, spoke to me, his love consumed me. I never worried to know what he felt for me. It ran through my veins.

Just like a drug,
the hateful part of my mind offered, the part that worried and dwelled.

“No,” Matthew insisted, and now I could hear it. The discordant notes when he lied. “It was me. I was responsible. You have to punish me.” Everything a lie but the prayer at the end.

“Curious,” the Prince murmured to me. “Men who seek punishments they haven’t earned.”

“I made this possible,” Matthew interjected, suddenly hostile. His face grew dark and he stabbed a finger forward, pointing to my Prince. “If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be wallowing at the bottom of the Abyss!”

The Prince’s fingers tangled in my hair and I sighed. “He wants to be punished. He begs for it.” He looked past me towards the other man. “Why?” The Prince released his hold on me, and pushed me forward a bit. “Make him explain, my champion. Humans are so horribly complex.”

With the release of his hold on me, the fog in my head lifted. It took a moment to sift through the last several minutes, to put everything into context. The Prince had never subsumed my will under his own so effortlessly before. Typically the emotions swept over me and influenced me for a moment, but this had been more pervasive.

He could suppress my will entirely if that’s what he wanted. I really would be nothing more than his puppet then.

My stomach roiled, and I spent another moment trying to keep from vomiting everywhere. The Prince might forgive me many things, but vomit on his person would probably not be one of those things.

As I got myself under control, I made an immediate decision. I had to play along. That was the only way.

“He wants to know why you’re lying.” I turned around, trying to orient myself, and walked towards the exit looking for the light switch. Not that candlelight wasn’t effective, but I wanted to be able to actually look the man in the eyes.