Darkness Brutal (The Dark Cycle Book 1) (37 page)

FIFTY

The cave is deeper than it appears, the ceiling higher—twelve feet or more above our heads. The damp walls glisten as if reflecting starlight.

The dark presence inside is a force, a live thing, sadistic and hungry, pressing at our skin. It is mutilation, agony, a rending of flesh, and it overpowers any sense of my mother’s pain as we move farther inside.

After about fifty feet, the tunnel opens up into a large circular room with dark rock walls. The sound of the far-off tide echoes around us, and when I look up, I notice an opening in the roof of the cave, framing the stars. On the wall opposite us there’s a white stone archway, inset in the black rock like a doorway. I sense the pull of it and I know: that’s where my father, Daniel, came through.

Kara grips my hand, keeping me grounded.

The shadows around us lift as my eyes adjust to the darkness, and my worst nightmare is revealed in the center of the room: an altar carved from the same stone as the floor and walls, and laid out on it like a waiting sacrifice, my sister.

Her thin form is small and white on the dark slab, her delicate hands folded over her chest, her white hair almost giving off a light of its own. A delicate sleeping beauty.

The air rumbles around us, and a thin red mist appears. Everything surrounding us twists and writhes. The darkness divides itself, and two separate entities grow from the shadow: a wolflike demon and a man.

They stand on the other side of the altar. The demon is in front, a hunched thing, familiar. I nearly fall to my knees as I recognize it, and the past comes up to meet me once more: Mom in her circle; Mom rocking and crying as she pleads with a creature in the shadows; Mom’s chest clawed open.

It’s not corporeal, not like when it came that last night to my mother. Now its form shimmers like a reflection, but it’s still more terrifying than anything I’ve ever seen before or since. Its body is hunched and lanky, a hairless creature, thin muscles visible through pink and violet flesh, ears pointed, snout long, and canines sharp over its gums.

My fist tightens around the hilt of the dagger. I’m so focused on the creature that I barely notice the man until he speaks.

“She said you would come.” The voice is not human. It’s the sound of scratching wood and cracking bone. “She’s lovely, isn’t she?”

He’s dressed in a pair of jeans and a black wool coat. The normality of him, his model-like features and dark brown hair, is such a sharp contrast to his energy and voice that it’s unsettling—a predator in sheep’s clothing. But it’s his eyes that give him away as something . . . more. They’re a glowing midnight blue. A demon in corporeal form. And somehow I know: this is the Heart-Keeper.

“She’s mine,” I say, trying to put all my will into the words.

The man gives me a sad smile. “No, son of Adam. She cannot be claimed by you now. It’s too late. I have already done so. She is a daughter of angels and Eve and can only be claimed as a child.”

My skin shivers. “She’s Nephilim.”

“She’s the key,” he says. “And I’ve brought her here with my will. She is mine by right.” He moves closer and sets something at Ava’s side: an open wooden box.

I glance inside it. And my knees turn liquid.

A human heart.

My mother’s heart.

I grip the wall of rock beside me.

The demon man motions to the wolf creature. “Because he is under my rule, everything my servant touches I have power over. He marked your sister as his, and so she is now mine.”

The memory of the demon scratching my sister on her tiny shoulder that night flashes across my vision.

“She isn’t yours,” I say through clenched teeth.

“Saying it again won’t make it so. She was a necessity after the imbalance your existence created. It seemed only fitting that both master of Light and master of Darkness would come from the same womb. And soon this child will rise up against you. And kill you.” He smiles in satisfaction.

“No,” I say, shaking my head, unable to even fathom his words. They have to be lies. “That’s not going to happen.”

He laughs. “Perhaps you should ask the sorcerer what the prophecies are—why he was sent to kill you. Then you’ll see the necessity. She is the key to your destruction and my triumph.” He sighs. “Your sorcerer was weak. He did not do what should have been done. If he had, the Marshalls wouldn’t have needed to die. But something had to spark the seed of inhumanity within your sister. Senseless, really. Merely because your sorcerer couldn’t commit his duty and dispose of his mentor’s mistake. You.”

He reaches into his coat pocket and slides a shiny object from it. A small, four-inch blade. “When your sister’s loved ones were torn to pieces in front of her, everything was set in motion. The remainder of the process is simple. I take her heart. And from that moment she’ll live forever without remorse or concern. The perfect counterbalance to you.”

My own heart thunders in my chest.

“Oh, she will not die as a normal human—not like your mother,” he says. “Her blood provides her with the ability to continue on. She’s a true immortal.”

She’ll live forever. Without a heart.

She lies on the altar, unaware, the vision of innocence, bathed in starlight. She made this choice for me, thinking she’d save me. But I’m supposed to save
her
. I made a promise. A promise to give my heart, my life, to keep her safe.

I lunge.

The Heart-Keeper’s blade rises over Ava’s chest as I leap onto the altar and go for his neck with my own dagger.

Right before I reach him, he jerks back in a flash, swatting the weapon from my hand.

It flies to the side, hitting the wall with a chink. His thin silver blade comes at my head.

I grip his arm, stopping it.

Smoke rises from his coat; something sizzles under my palm. The wolf demon raises its snout in the air like it can smell it.

The Heart-Keeper smiles. “You know what I am, Seer. And yet you touch me?” He reaches out before I can react, snatching the amulet from my neck and tossing it in the same direction that my dagger went. Then he shoves all his energy at me.

I’m hit by an invisible blow. I soar backward through the air, slamming into the jagged rock behind me before collapsing to the floor with a rush of breath from my lungs.

Everything blurs.

“Aidan!” Kara screams. She’s at my side, tugging on my arm as if to drag me up.

I cough, and blood splatters from my mouth.

Kara is yanked away. She flies back, landing in a crumpled mass by the archway at the feet of the Heart-Keeper.

He moves to stand over me, holding his hand out, like he’s ordering the wolf demon not to strike. “I won’t let my servant kill you,” he says to me, “since it doesn’t serve my purpose. Yet I feel it’s only fair that he is able to taste your blood since he’s seen what you will do to his race in the future.”

He steps aside, and the wolf demon is there, red-lit eyes on me.

I scramble along the wall toward the cave opening. Those hunched shoulders, those familiar claws that held my mother’s life in their grip . . . They tore into my world, killing my childhood, marking Ava, taking everything I cared about in a moment.

Before I can twist out of the way it has me, claws like thorns digging into my shoulder, sliding me across the sandy floor. A snarl of satisfaction comes from the creature’s snout. It huffs its misty-red breath in my face and then swings wide, raking me across the cheek.

The smell of ash fills my head. The smell of blood.

I struggle, trying to get to my feet. The beast moves in for another blow. I duck, and my head spins, the ground tipping, my stomach rising. It grips me from behind, encircling my neck with a large claw, talons sinking into my skin, drawing more blood. It drags me to the middle of the room, yanking my arms behind my back. Then it shoves me to my knees, forcing me to face the altar once more, this time as its captive.

I watch the blurred shape of the Heart-Keeper as he paces back and forth along the other side of my sister’s body. I try to breathe, to think clearly past the pain and the terror. I won’t let it swallow me.

The Heart-Keeper taps the dagger against his chin in consideration. “Since I cannot kill you right now, I’ve decided we’ll play a game.”

The wolf demon releases a low, rumbling laugh. Its large bone fingers crush my trachea as it raises my chin so I’m forced to see what’s about to happen. The Heart-Keeper lifts Kara’s limp body from the ground.

Sand peppers her hair and one side of her face. Her eyes are listless. He holds her against him like a lover. Caressing her neck, her arms. Her head lolls to the side, resting on his chest.

I jerk against my captor with all my strength, but the talons only clench harder at my throat. The demon pulls my arms back until they’re close to breaking, forcing me to cry out in pain and rage.

Kara’s eyes crack open; a moan escapes her lips.

The Heart-Keeper smiles again. Then he brings the dagger up, resting the tip against her cheek. He touches his nose to the top of her head and takes in a long breath. A rumble sounds deep in his chest. “If I had more time, I’d take her flesh. I see you haven’t claimed her.” He looks over at me. “Weak boy. You missed your chance.”

I close my eyes, unable to watch the horror. Helplessness overwhelms me. I have nothing, nothing to fight with. Without even realizing it, I begin to mumble under my breath, if only to block out the Heart-Keeper’s chain of sickening words about what he’ll do to Kara, how he’ll torment her. I whisper, “
Baruch atah Adonai elohaynu melech ha’olam asher
” over and over again:
Praised are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the Universe who
. . . but I have nothing to ask for, nothing to connect the blessing to. I recite it again and again, hoping that something will come to me, until it feels like a song and everything else slips away.

The wolf demon whines like a nervous dog. The Heart-Keeper goes silent.

I open my eyes, the words going still on my tongue. The Heart-Keeper’s human facade flickers for a second, revealing a hint of twisted demon features.

“Quiet!” he snarls, his skin looking like it wants to crawl off his bones, like his whole body wants to escape the simple words.

I begin again, speaking louder, more sure of myself.

The Heart-Keeper hisses, “Rip out his tongue!”

The wolf demon obeys instantly, loosening its grip on my wrists to grab my jaw.

I take the opportunity to slip a hand free, reach into my pocket, dig out what’s left of my sacred dirt, and then twist, shoving my fist into its doglike face.

Its skin sizzles. It screeches and swings a fist, striking my temple.

The world spins again, but I manage to roll away before the beast can lunge a second time.

I land in the corner where my dagger was tossed, my amulet beside it. I snatch up the dagger, coming around in an arc of movement, slashing at the apparition from hell as its claws swing, digging shallow cuts across my chest.

I barely feel them as my blade catches its target.

Leather skin and muscle give way. The beast freezes for a second, its jaws opening in a growl of pain, red eyes wide with shock. Even I’m not sure what to do as I look at the molten crack across its arm muscle made by my dagger.

“Foolish creature,” the Heart-Keeper growls, “get hold of him!”

The wolf demon snaps back to attention, keying in on me again. I glance down at the blade in my fist and then up at my attacker, and I see in its face that it’s considering the same thing I am: demons can be killed.

I rise in a surge of power and charge. It twists out of the way, but my next dagger strike is ready. In a flash, I spin in the opposite direction, bring the blade up, and slam it to the hilt into the taut belly. A cry of rage comes from us both. I yank up, tearing the creature wide open.

I’m frozen for a second, trying to register the contact. The demon’s black blood is spilling over my hands and pooling at my feet. I pull the blade out and step away, taking in the sight of what I’ve done.

The wound begins to spark, turning molten orange, like the dying embers of a fire. Fissures open along the demon’s torso, bright and crackling, until they’re sizzling with a hiss. Then the figure crumples in on itself, skin drifting up like floating ash, revealing twisted bone before the remains fly up in a surge of wind, disappearing into the air with a burst of cinder and dust.

I turn to the Heart-Keeper. Kara’s still held against him, his blade at her pink throat.

He looks at the floating ash of his minion and snarls. “That wasn’t wise.”

I try to catch my breath. But just as I’m getting ready to move closer, test his resolve, something shifts in the air, and I pause.

The Heart-Keeper looks up.

I follow his line of sight to the opening in the ceiling over the altar. A shadow falls over the hole, casting itself on Ava’s form.

Ice crawls over my skin.

It’s time.

The Heart-Keeper goes for Ava in a blur of movement.

But the second he lets Kara go, she spins, slipping a knife from her pocket and ramming it into his neck.

He hisses angrily and shoves Kara with his powers, slamming her into the altar. Her head strikes the edge with a loud crack.

She collapses to the floor as the demon raises the needle-thin dagger over Ava’s chest.

I cry out, surging forward.

But it’s too late.

The blade slides into my sister’s heart. The hilt hits her ribs hard enough to crack bone. And all the air leaves my lungs.

“Mine,” the demon growls, his voice echoing against the stone walls like a curse.

Ava’s small chest moves once, then again, until it goes perfectly still. A shadow of blood blossoms on her shirt.

I choke and cry out as I stumble to the altar. The weight crashes in on me; too much, too much to carry.

I failed. God, what have I done?

Then suddenly her body jerks as the Heart-Keeper slices into bone, trying to dig out what’s inside.

The pain fills me in a rush, propelling me to my feet. I leap onto the altar and shove him back. His hand slips off the dagger as he falls.