Darkbound (The Legacy of Moonset) (19 page)

“Your father taught you?”

He shook his head. “My mother. Elizabeth. They divorced when I was young. Elizabeth Raines.”

Illana inclined her head, though I couldn’t tell if that meant she believed him, or she was still skeptical. She didn’t press the issue any further, though. “How long since you started losing your hearing?”

“Little bit all my life. It keeps falling away like breadcrumbs, gets a little worse after time. The hearing aids make it impossible to cast. I can’t hear the words right, so I can’t repeat them with the same inflections.”

Magic was all about the mouth and the ears. Words spoken and heard. Inflections memorized and tasted on the tongue. If one of those senses was damaged, then it would make the whole process harder. I’d heard of witches who were born with problems: ones that couldn’t speak, others that couldn’t hear. It had to be incredibly difficult, being able to touch something they couldn’t fully master.

At least, I assumed it would have to be difficult. For me, not much would have changed.

“How is it that no one knows about you,” Illana pressed. “You are still a witch. Still a part of our society regardless of what challenges you face.”

The man looked at her and laughed, and then hesitated like he’d heard the joke wrong. He sobered quickly when her expression only sharpened. “I’m not a witch. Not really. I’m not in a coven, but I’m not a Solitaire either. I don’t use magic, so I don’t participate in the government. If I fell through the cracks somewhere, I’m sorry, but that’s not my fault. As far as the Congress is concerned, I’m useless, therefore I don’t exist.”

The speech only managed to intensify the cold front warring across Illana’s face. “No witch is useless to the Congress. Or do you not realize to whom you are speaking?”

“You didn’t even know my name yesterday,” the man said sadly. “I’m not one of you. And claiming me now doesn’t do either one of us any measure of good. I accepted that I was an outcast a long time ago. I keep my head down, stay away from trouble, and live a normal life. That’s fine enough for me. Nothing shameful in it at all.”

I noticed he hadn’t admitted whether or not he knew who she was. Illana’s expression changed—softened, really—as I think she came to the same conclusion. “I am sorry if we have failed you,” she said stiffly. “But that is not actually why we are here.”

He smiled. “I didn’t think you were. What can I do to help, ma’am?”

“You went to school with Cyrus Denton,” Illana said, returning the attention where it belonged. On her. “You were his friend. So now you’re going to tell me everything you remember about the Abyssal Prince that came to Carrow Mill, and what really happened to it.”

The man was quiet for a long time, still in a way that said he was somewhere else. There was a faint shimmer in his eyes when they focused again, and he nodded once. Sharply. “If you’d be so kind as to turn the sign and lock the front door,” he said, looking towards me.

I went back to the entrance, turned the lock, and flipped the sign to Closed. When I came back to the counter, a crystal decanter was on the counter, and the man’s hands shook as he poured himself a tumbler of courage.

“You’re looking for the body,” he said slow and clear. “Now let me convince you not to.”

t
w
e
n
t
y
-f
i
v
e

Diana killed because it was fun. Sherrod killed to send a message. Cy Denton? He was the worst. Sherrod said “kill” and he did it, and never
asked why. People meant nothing to him.

Jack Wyatt (S)
Carrow Mill, New York—
From
Moonset: A Dark Legacy

Matthew threw back his glass, swallowing down the amber liquor, then poured a second glass and repeated the gesture.

“I know the stories. Everyone says Moonset summoned that thing. But there’s no way. Cyrus and I were close—maybe not so much after the Coven formed, but before that, definitely. I hung out with him and Charles—sorry, Charlie—all the time. Cy was the only kid who didn’t make fun of me for my hearing aids. Back then I had to wear two, really ugly things.

“No one’s seen an Abyssal Prince in a hundred years, so the adults in town, they never believed them. But Cy and the others, they wouldn’t give up. They did all the research and investigating on their own. They monitored the rest of the school, trying to find a pattern. And eventually, they figured out who the Abyssal was.

“I don’t know what happened when they fought it, but they came back different. They saw things, maybe did things, I don’t know. What happened changed them all like they were soldiers coming back from war. I always thought that thing got in their heads. Maybe it didn’t make them evil overnight, but it could have been the first step. Got them all mixed up on the path that ended … ” He scratched the back of his neck. “Well, we all know how that ended.”

“This isn’t relevant to my questions,” Illana said coolly. She didn’t like when people talked about
why
Moonset went dark. To Illana, all that mattered was that they
had.
Wondering why didn’t make anything more clear. I was with her on that—I didn’t want to speculate on where our parents had gone wrong. It wasn’t my concern.

“It should be relevant, because they were always jumpy afterwards. I think that whatever happened, they didn’t end it. Just stopped it for a while. And that someday it was going to come back to bite them in the ass … only it’s not their asses on the line anymore.”

My father was already too real for me as it was.

“I don’t know what I can tell you. There weren’t any witnesses, and Cy was like a bank vault when he didn’t want to talk. They crawled home to recover and meanwhile some hotshot guy came to town and took credit for everything, and they let him. But if there’s a chance that thing could come back, you have to back off.”

“The Abyssal needed a host,” I said slowly, caught up on another thread.

“Yes?” Illana turned to me. I turned back to Matthew.

“Charlie’s girlfriend. That’s the weekend she disappeared, isn’t it?”

“You mean Savannah?” Matthew shook his head. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but she’s not dead. She took off. Left town and never looked back. Charlie ended things, said his brother was more important. She ran, but it was too late. Cy never forgave his brother for running her off.”

“Charlie was quite clear. The girl is dead, not a runaway.” Illana tapped a finger against the counter, a solid press and twist like there was something underneath she was trying to squash.

“You talked to Charlie already?” Matthew looked surprised. “Then I don’t know why you’re here talking to me. Didn’t he tell you all this already?”

“If he had,” Illana said witheringly, “do you really think we would be here now?”

The man scratched the back of his neck again and glanced towards the rear of the store. “I don’t know what you want from me. This was all so long ago. I’m sorry I can’t be more help, really, but I need to check on my dad. He gets antsy if he doesn’t see
Wheel of Fortune
.”

Illana looked at me for a moment, then shrugged. “If something else comes up, we’ll be back.”

The man nodded immediately, and then realized his face was blank and expressionless. The feigned smile slid back on with a practiced air. “Of course, ma’am. There’s a stack of business cards by the door. Call any time.”

Illana waited for his back to turn before she rolled her eyes. I stifled a snort at her irritation.

“Oh, hey,” he called right before we left. “He never told me where it was, but him and the other Moonset guys had some sort of secret hideout. Some place they’d always go to get away from everything in town. I don’t know if that helps or not, but there might be something there to help you figure out what happened.”

Illana dropped me off back at Charlie’s where I’d left my car. Adele was on the front porch, a pair of knitting needles in either hand though it didn’t appear she was actually knitting anything. She smiled and waved one of them in the air. Illana didn’t stay, pulling out of the driveway almost before I had fully exited the vehicle.

At home that night, everyone wanted to talk about Justin. How he was doing, when he was coming home. There were subtle comments about how lonely he’d been all afternoon, and how they’d tried calling to see where I was, but I never picked up.

Jenna raised her eyebrow in a question at one point, and I shook my head. Now wasn’t the time to talk about it anyway.

Despite the way the week opened with excitement, the rest of it was a disappointment. There were no new leads on the dead Abyssal, no sightings of the current Prince, and no changes in the status of anything between. The school was running into a shortage of detention slips, though, as public displays of “inappropriateness” skyrocketed. There were at least half a dozen fights in the morning before school and at least one or two after.

Those among us with magic had taken to keeping to our own groups. Normally, Maddy had a group of girls around her, but with the violence in the halls, the witches had banded together. I used the opportunity to rope Kevin into helping me start the basics of set construction, although that was mostly me trying to keep him from severing a limb or stapling his foot to the floor. Set design was easy, the construction part was moderately difficult. The fact that my assistant could throw a perfect spiral pass on the field yet couldn’t connect a hammer to nail without a body part in the way was disturbing.

But the worst part of all was that there was no sign of the Prince. I knew he had to be planning something, but had no idea what. The longer that his reappearance took, the more my nerves strained.

When I pulled back up to the school that evening, cutting around the back lane past the football field, which would put me right near the auditorium entrance, I didn’t notice the flashing lights at first. But as I walked towards the door I couldn’t help but notice the reflection of red and blue lights against the houses across the street from the school. Instead of heading inside, I walked around to the front of the building, past all the side entrances that were no doubt locked up by now.

There were three different police cars and an ambulance parked in front of the school, headlights blazing right at the front entrance. In addition, there were half a dozen bodies standing off to one side: teachers in their off time, administrators in yoga pants and ratty shirts. Only one or two students, really. A sobbing girl who couldn’t seem to catch a breath for all of her shaking and gasping. And another girl, calm and big-eyed behind a pair of glasses, watching everything go down with perfect calm.

“What happened?” I asked. The eyeglasses girl looked at me and blinked several times. If possible, the crying girl started gasping even louder between sobs.

“He broke into the office, trying to change her grades.” She nodded first towards one of the police cars, where a silhouette sat glumly in the backseat, slumped over and still. The second nod was for the crying girl, and I guess it made a little more sense now. Her Romeo had gotten busted trying to do her a solid. What could she do but weep?

“And the ambulance?”

“He couldn’t figure out the password, so he put his hand through the monitor. They say he’s lucky he didn’t electrocute himself. I guess that’s happened before.”

“He-he-he.” Each hysterical exhale was punctuated by a wheezing sound, and it took many of them strung together before I realized the crier was trying to say something, but she couldn’t manage anything more than the first word.

He was doing it for me. He did it for love. He’s my knight in shining handcuffs.
It didn’t really matter what she was going for, I knew where it ended.

“You should get her out of here. Unless the police are planning to interrogate her.” Standing around while her boyfriend sat in the back of a cop car wasn’t going to do anyone any good. Especially not with the current brand of crazy going around. She might decide that a jailbreak was the only acceptable alternative.

“I don’t even know her,” the girl said distastefully. “I just came over to see what all the crazy was about.”

“Seriously?” I stared at the girl until she started to squirm, looking quickly towards me and then away. Then back again, to make sure I was still watching her. Finally she groaned, threw her hands out and grabbed the other girl by the arm and dragged her away.

People were really losing it. Or maybe that’s how people actually were: come to watch the train wreck, but God forbid anyone ask you to grab some bandages for the wounded.

The auditorium was almost empty when I finally made my way back to the rear of the school and entered the building. Brice had it arranged with the janitorial staff that the auditorium doors would stay unlocked until eight or nine; after that, we could leave whenever we wanted, but we couldn’t get back inside unless someone else was already there.

Almost
empty. The Prince lounged on the edge of the stage, silver hair now streaked with black, like the photo negative of someone going gray. Golden skin was looking a little sallow, pink in some places, less human. And more makeup.

There were no crazy backdrops. No castles or asylums or creepy surroundings. Just him and me. His hands were braced on either side of him, ready to push off the stage at a moment’s notice. He watched me warily as I approached, and even more carefully once I stopped. The Prince was the enemy. I couldn’t forget that.

“I am very cross with you,” he said clearly.

The lights in the building went out, and darkness consumed me.

The lights came back on in a one-two clang. Not lights. Spotlights. One was trained on me, and I looked up into the stands to see who was manning the equipment, but it was too hard to see. The other, as I turned to look, was focused on the Prince, who now lounged in a hideously ornate throne, equal parts gold and human bones. Whoever designed the throne had a sense of humor: the legs were made from femurs, long and ashen, while the arms were made from tibias and fibulas and phalanges at the tips. And reigning above his head, a baker’s dozen of human skulls, each far smaller than I would have expected.

Until I realized they were the skulls of children.

“Just for once can’t you cut the theatrics?”

Puzzlement ran across the Prince’s face unchecked. “But we are in a theater.” To him, it made the most perfect kind of sense. That was what one did in a theater.

“This is an
auditorium.
A place where you go so people can hear you.”

He appeared to think that over for a few seconds before tucking the whole conversation away. “Then hear me: I’m very cross with you, my champion,” he said, retreating to a stern face that seemed hard to hold onto. The Prince was used to smiling, laughing. Levity. He could do anger and rage as well, but the emotions never sat so easily on his face. Then again, as he planned to slaughter three dozen Witchers, he was laughing and having a grand time.

“I’m doing what you told me to do. Trying to find out what happened. It takes time.”

The Prince smiled slowly, but it wasn’t the usual smile of joy that I saw. Now that smile carried
thoughtfulness, seething frustration,
and
calculation.
“I thought you might say that.” He snapped his fingers, the sound almost immediately drowned out by a third clang of metal as yet another spotlight lit up.

I spun around, searching for it only to realize that it had come on just behind me and to the left. The far side of the auditorium: the only other entrance. Someone walked in slowly, barefoot and in thick black frames I’d never seen before. Brice, blue-eyed and sleep-rumpled.

He could have been a model, especially now, black hair sweeping into his eyes, his cheeks still stained red from where they’d pressed against a pillow.

“What’s your name, pet?” The Prince was all smiles, welcoming like a sunny day.

“Brice,” he said, and his voice was deep and gravely. The casual confidence I’d seen in him before was still there, but it was a skipping record: every so often, there was a jarring moment where his eyes unfocused and his eyes grew wide and worried.

“Hello, Brice,” the Prince said formally. He extended a hand towards me. “Do you know Malcolm?”

“I know him,” the other boy nodded. “He’s new.”

“He’s seen you too,” the Prince confided.

“Really?” The news made Brice happy, an easy smile ran across his face.

“What are you doing?” I could feel it like the heat of the spotlights against my face. “Stop it.”

“But we haven’t even gotten started.” The Prince waved his hands with a flourish, then took a small bow. “The pleasure is all mine, Brice.”

Brice smiled, the confidence now fully stripped from him, his aura of calm washed away. More than once he reached up to scratch his face, a ne
rvous habit that I could now see for what it was.

“Do you love him?” The Prince continued. Dogged intent and a lilting
curiosity
framed the question, a thing that was both innocent and judgment at the same time.

“Who? Malcolm?” Brice scoffed. “I don’t know him.”

“Do you love him?” The Prince repeated. This time, there was more force to his words, a tangled cadence of words and thoughts and emotions and intent.