Cast Into Darkness (30 page)

Melina led Kate inside and through a sparsely furnished sitting room. They came to a large, metal door set with a palm lock—like the Sanctum at home. Melina put her hand up to it, and the door opened. She entered.

Kate hesitated at the door. The round room was smaller than Kate’s family’s Sanctum but lined with the same swirling patterns of glowing stone. Green, blue, lavender—cool washes of color flowed across the room. According to Grayson, the hues of the stones didn’t matter. Green, blue, red, yellow—they all provided the same protection. But the energy felt different. Melina’s room—her Sanctum—vibrated with a rapid, hyper thrumming that set Kate’s teeth on edge.
How does she stand it? Working in here must be a pain in the butt. It would make me want to kill somebody.

“Come inside. I want you in the circle stones.” Melina walked to just outside the circle stones in the Sanctum’s center—green instead of warm amber.

Do different colored circle stones work the same, as well? Grayson never said.

Kate didn’t move. “What if I don’t?”

Melina shrugged. “You already tested your spellcuffs.” At Kate’s look of surprise, a smug smile flashed across Melina’s face. “Yes, I can tell from the talismans on the cuffs. You know how much pain they can pour into your body if you cast. But I can make them do more than that.”

Melina’s brow furrowed. Kate’s hands tingled, then burned with a fiery pain.

“Stop, please stop. I didn’t do anything.” She stared down at her hands, wrapped in the silver bindings Melina called spellcuffs. The green stones glowed as the pain in Kate’s hands went from a slow burn to an incessant, scorching agony. She clutched her hands, gasping.

“You asked me what would happen if you refused. Here’s your answer. If you want to make this process difficult, it’s your decision.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll do what you want.” The pain in Kate’s hands eased, then disappeared as Melina concentrated on the cuffs again. She stretched her fingers against the restraints, then walked into the Sanctum and into the center of the circle stones.

What had Grayson told her about Melina before the funeral? The oldest but not the heir. A whiz kid who became the Makrises’ senior technician after her mother had lost it to paranoia. Kind of a junior Grayson but, in his words,
lacking my wisdom and experience
. Someone who manipulated from behind the scenes. So much for hoping Melina wasn’t a monster like the rest of her family.

Melina’s brow furrowed in concentration, and soon a soft hum came from the circle stones around Kate. A glow lit each stone from the center outward, and a shimmering barrier rose through the air. Just as Victor had done to her in her family’s Sanctum the day after Brian died, Melina had activated the holding function as well as the protection function.

Melina went behind a blue glass wall set in the back of the Sanctum. Kate could see her silhouette, reaching onto a shelf and picking up a square object.

“Why do you need me in the circle?” Kate held up her hands. “You spellcuffed me.”

“I’m not worried about you. I’m worried about what’s inside you.”

Kate shivered. “What…is it?”

Melina didn’t answer.

Whatever’s inside me has to be something the stone put there. If Melina knows, I have to find a way to make her tell me.

“Sit down,” Melina said.

Kate sat. The slate floor was rough and cold even through her jeans. Melina came out from behind the wall with an old, tattered book and a small silver box. Kate hugged herself. She knew that box.

Melina sat cross-legged on a floor cushion, the book and silver box next to her. She opened the book and flipped to a well-used page.

“What do you know about the Pandora Stone?” Melina asked.

Kate started. That’s what Dylan thought it was.

“Just the legends. It’s supposed to bring the old magic back if it is ever completely lost. Other than that…”

Melina picked up the box. “Oh, I think you know a bit more. Your brother entrusted it to you. You managed to fend off an attack by a rogue who wanted it—”

“How do you know about the attack?”

“And it killed your brother, didn’t it?” Melina walked around the circle stones, studying Kate as her dress trailed her. “Is that when it made you a caster?”

“Why don’t you ask Kristof? Apparently he knows everything about me.”

“You shouldn’t have been so open with him. But then, you thought he was your boyfriend. Not your enemy.”

Kate crossed her arms.

“My brother believes he can have anything he wants,” Melina said. “Anyone. Our father sends him on a mission to gain information from an enemy, and he thinks nothing of breaking the Rules to get it. Even if he breaks a girl’s heart in the process. Typical. Makris men are like that, you know. Callous. Privileged. Out for themselves.”

And you aren’t? Please.

“You’re angry at Kristof for his betrayal, at Dmitri for his attack. You want to get back at them for what they’ve done.”

What kind of game was Melina playing? “Sure. Of course.”

“Then help me figure out how the stone works. Help me understand the power inside you. How you broke the teleport block around the estate, why the power tried to consume you a moment ago.”

She shifted on the cold stone tiles. “Why?”

“Simple. Whatever power you called up, you can’t control. You need my help.”

Kate’s heart sank at Melina’s words. She was right about the lack of control. If she tried to use the power again, anything might happen. Something awful. Something fatal.

“I don’t need you. I have my own family. My uncle, my friend Dylan, they can—”

“They aren’t here. I am. And they don’t have this.” She opened the silver box. The stone sat inside, a black disk lying against the pristine white of its silk cocoon. It drew in the blue-green light of the Sanctum’s gems and wrapped the gems’ glow around its obsidian darkness, as if taking the Sanctum’s power as its rightful tribute.

She tried to avert her eyes, to look at something else, anything, even Melina’s smug smile. But the stone drew her gaze back as surely as a swaying cobra held a mouse’s attention.

It whispered to her. Sang to her, in a deep, dark voice, like a quiet echo of the power that spoke inside her.
Touch me, touch me. Pick me up, look into my depths. Then everything will be over.
She wrenched her attention back to Melina.

“I’m going to examine you,” Melina said. “You have two choices. You can help me, or you can fight me. If you fight me, I’ll win.” Her eyes gleamed in the green light of the Sanctum. “If you help me, we might both benefit. Make the right choice.”

No, there’s a third choice. Pretend to cooperate, learn all I can, and use it to control this power inside me. And bring down its darkness on you, Dmitri, and Kristof.

I’ll take option three, thanks.

She drew her knees in and hugged them close. “Okay. I’ll cooperate. Just don’t use the spellcuffs. Please.” She sniffled. Playing the scared little Null wasn’t much of a stretch.

Melina’s smiled a knowing smile. “Good choice. Now stay quiet and don’t resist.”

Melina tapped out the points of the symbol, sang her chant—so like yet unlike the Hamiltons’ language—and tendrils of green energy, smelling faintly of chlorine, shot from Melina’s hands, penetrated the circle stone barrier, and wrapped themselves around Kate.

But the stone played its old games. Trying to entrance her, to get her to lose herself in its ebony depths. Trapped by the circle stones and the cuffs around her hands, fighting the pull of the Pandora Stone, she could no more stop Melina than she could hold back the summer sun.

Melina’s spell sank into her body, and she felt it rummaging through her tissue, her bones, her blood, her muscles. A sharp, cold tingle ran through her spine. Then a ripple of pain crashed through her skull, a rush of warmth flushed her face, and the sharp, acidic scent of chlorine choked her nostrils.

Pure fear seized and shook her.
No. I can’t afford to lose it. Not here, not now.
She visualized Melina: her eyes narrowed in concentration, her lips curved up in an arrogant smile. She wasn’t going to let another Makris get the better of her. Dammit, she was a caster now, too. There had to be something she could do.

Two problems: Melina and the stone.

She’d better take one at a time.

The stone first. She took a breath. Another. Then she focused on the stone’s voice in her head, calling to her. She pretended its words came from a brassy horn, calling in the distance and imagined the horn moving farther and farther away. As the stone’s call faded, she pulled her gaze away from it, millimeter by millimeter. The pressure in her head eased the further away her gaze drifted.

She could still see the stone, in the corner of her vision, but its dark power no longer swamped her.

Melina didn’t notice. Head thrown back, eyes unfocused, she seemed caught in the flow of her own spell.

Melina’s spell poured through the circle-stone barrier, its green energy like a solid rush of water. Kate’s body absorbed the energy with a sharp tingle. It felt like the spell Grayson had done after she’d been changed. Maybe it did what Grayson’s spell had done—delved into the depths of her cells and into her DNA itself to see what she had become. But it felt like Melina’s spell went further. Its green energy not only scanned Kate, but Kate could also see it flow between her and the stone. Did the spell watch the stone as it sang to Kate and assess the stone’s function, as well?

If so, Melina would know what the stone had done to Kate as soon as her spell finished. She’d know how Kate had cast the spells that let her break the teleport block and burn Dmitri.

That would be more than Kate knew herself. Was there any way she could see what Melina saw? She scrutinized Melina’s spell with her magesight. Then she looked at the stone. Nothing. She wasn’t a master technician like Melina—only a newbie caster. Despair welled up in her.

What had Dylan told her? Lyndal, the stone’s creator, had made the Pandora Stone to bring back primal magic—the kind that had existed in the First Era. Was primal magic the kind of power she’d called up in the tree house and in Africa? But according to legend, primal magic casters had no problem controlling their spells. They just had to pay for them in…

Shit
. They paid for their spells in death.

The butterflies in the catalpa grove, the lizard in the tree house, the beetles, and the seagulls. All of them dying, even as she called up the blackness inside and cast her spells.

Oh God. That’s what I am. A primal magic caster.

If Dylan was right, that meant the stone really
wasn’t
finished with her. Its calls to her were attempts to complete its programming, interrupted by Brian’s spell. Attempts to finish making her into a primal magic caster—one with control.

Was Kate supposed to touch the stone and complete its transformation? Maybe she’d gain the control over its power she now lacked. Or maybe she should find some way to undo what it had done. Being a Null again would suck, but being powerless was better than losing herself to…that
hunger
rising up from the dark ocean of what had to be primal magic inside her. The force that threatened to pull her down and consume her. Every time she used the power, it killed something. What would it do if she lost control again? Eat her alive? Kill someone else?

Melina’s eyes opened, and the stream of green energy snapped off. Kate slumped to the floor, exhausted. Her body ached, her head hurt, and her mind spun.

“That’s…very interesting.” Melina shut the stone’s silver box.

Kate relaxed as the stone’s call muted. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what you found out?”

“Why would I keep it from you? That wouldn’t help anyone.” Melina walked behind the blue glass wall and put the stone and book away. She came back around to face Kate. “The Pandora Stone is trying to possess you, permanently. Its creator, the First Era caster Lyndal, designed it to take a blank slate—a Null—and transform it into a tool to awaken primal magic from its long sleep. The stone planted a direct link to primal magic inside you, and primal magic plans to use you as a gateway back into the world.”

No, no, no. She’s lying. She must be.
“How can primal magic ‘plan’ anything? It’s not alive.”

“Isn’t it? You’ve felt the call from the stone, how primal magic speaks to you. You think it doesn’t have intention?”

Oh, it did. It definitely had intention. If only she could figure that intention out.

“It wants to return, seeks what it views as its rightful place. That’s primal magic’s purpose, not any of these legends that you’ve heard. The stone is its agent. And after so long an absence, it’s very hungry.”

“What? You’re… You’ve got to be kidding.” Kate sat on the cold floor, silent. Melina’s story could be true. It made sense in a weird way, as much sense as the explanation she’d come up with. The stone had possessed her before. Maybe its call to her served as the set-up for the final possession. She made her hands into fists before Melina could see them shaking.

Melina’s a Makris. Just like Dmitri. And Kristof. They all lie, break the rules, and take what they want. So why is she bothering to tell me anything? What does she want from me that she can’t take?

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

Melina shrugged. “You don’t. But why would I lie?”

Because you’re a Makris?
“How do I stop the stone from possessing me? Reverse what it’s already done?” Kate asked.

“I don’t know. Not yet. But I can find out. And when I do, I can use the stone to take away that dark void inside.”

“Would I still be a caster?”

“I don’t see how I could change that. I don’t have the ability to remove anyone’s magic.”

I have no idea what you can or can’t do.
Kate glanced up. Melina presented the same half-arrogant smile, the same superior gaze as she flicked her hair back and looked down her long Makris nose at Kate. Like all the other caster girls, certain she’s smarter, prettier, better than a poor little Null like Kate.
Well, if that’s what Melina thought, maybe I should keep her thinking that.