Darkbound (The Legacy of Moonset) (21 page)

I hoped that was true. I’d already almost lost one brother. I couldn’t handle losing another.

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Some Covens have to struggle to find an equilibrium, the members jockeying for position. But Moonset, they were flawless from the
first day. Almost like they were meant to be.

Adele Roman
From the forward of
Moonset: A Dark Legacy

The three of us took Quinn’s car into the city. The library was just off of Main Street, set back from the curb and surrounded by a multitude of trees so thick that it was barely visible from the street.

“Closed on Saturdays,” Jenna noted, as we pulled in past the sign with the hours of operation.

“Not like that would stop Cole. You’ve been teaching him lock-picking spells, haven’t you?” Quinn asked from the driver’s seat.

I preferred to stay in the back and keep my thoughts to myself. The number of people walking around the city like it wasn’t under a surreptitious siege surprised me. Hadn’t anyone noticed that business trips, vacations, and reasons to leave the city of Carrow Mill were flitting by without a care? The Witchers had managed to brainwash the entire town, but they couldn’t manage to take down an Abyssal Prince.

How exactly was that possible, then? How powerful was he, if they couldn’t stop him, and how was I supposed to do anything that they couldn’t?

When Quinn pulled around to the rear of the building, the back door was swinging widely. I inhaled as soon as I got out of the car, but there wasn’t any trace of smoke in the air. It hadn’t gotten that far, at least. But if Cole had packed some sort of accelerant (and he was just enough of a troublemaker to know that an accelerant was necessary), there could already be a lot of property damage inside.

Quinn stopped us at the door. “Listen, try to talk him down. Try to reason with him. But don’t let him know that I’m with you. I’ll stay behind, keep an eye on things. I’ll step in if things escalate.”

“I don’t understand—” Jenna started.

“Because of Justin,” I said softly. “Because reasoning with him didn’t work, and he got hurt because I thought it would.”

Quinn clasped a hand on my shoulder and I immediately shrugged it off. Jenna glanced between the two of us and rolled her eyes. “Fine, whatever,” she said, stomping down the steps. “Cole Sutter, I
swear to God
if you so much as strike a match I’m going to stuff you into a trash can and roll you down a hill!” Jenna hollered her threat into the dark library, and the words echoed and bounced off of all the walls, so unused to loud voices. “Again!”

There was silence from the rest of the building.

The library interior was divided into two parts. To the left of us was the hallway leading to the children’s and teen section, and to the right, the adult and reference sections. Each were about the same size, and there were literally dozens of stacks for him to hide behind.

“Do we split up?” I whispered.

“Have you ever
seen
a horror movie? Just don’t go far. I’m throwing you in his way if he’s all rage-zombie feral.” Jenna motioned me forward, and taking a hunch, I headed for the reference area.

We didn’t have to go far. All of the reference shelves were half as high as the regular stacks, which meant an unobstructed view all the way to the rear of the library. I didn’t see any sign of Cole, but I saw a stack of books that was most definitely out of place.

Jenna followed behind me, her footsteps slow and cautious. I don’t know what happened to Quinn, he’d disappeared the moment we came inside. The lights were out, and none of us had bothered to turn them on: it was probably better if the lights stayed off for this.

There was a serpentine path of reference books—thick, heavy monstrosities—lined up against one another like a row of dominoes that had already fallen to the ground. They cut across one of the stacks, disappeared underneath a work table, and then emerged out the other side to circle around the interior wall.

I followed the stack, and Jenna followed me. We passed through Astrology and Religion, cut across to American History and the Civil War, and then into Biographies (Local) and then Biographies (Non-local).

The stack continued to run along the perimeter of the library, and once or twice I noticed other lines of books, other tentacles of this design Cole had come up with. And finally, I found
him.
Just outside the Cooking aisle, right next to a shelf filled with books like
Pastries for Beginners
, and
How to Bake the Perfect Bundt Cake
.

Cole was surrounded by a ring of books, of which there wasn’t just one line spilling out like a tentacle, there were several. And it looked like we caught him in the middle of planning for a few more.

He didn’t even look up at us as we approached. “You’re not supposed to be here yet,” he said. He looked down at his watch, eyes thoughtful. “I still have ten minutes more.”

Jenna strode past me and stepped easily over the spilled books. “‘Not supposed to be here?’ What do you think you’re doing, Cole?”

His jaw was set, his hair a sleep-spiked road map of flatlands and mountains. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.” I stepped forward, and when Cole flinched, I held up my arms quickly. “It’s okay, Cole. Just tell us what’s going on.”

Jenna snatched the lighter out of Cole’s hand, a long-stemmed red and black thing used for fireplaces and outdoor fires.

“I don’t need that,” Cole told her quietly. There was none of the crazy, animated energy that Cole usually possessed. There wasn’t even any of the sour, huffy scowling that he sometimes fell into. This was scary Cole. Calm, collected, and absolutely determined in what he was doing Cole. “I know spells for fire.”

“Just tell us what’s going on,” I said, raising my voice before Jenna snapped and lost it. I continued questioning Cole. “Did someone tell you to burn down the library? Did they talk about a book they hated or something?”

Jenna looked my way and I waved her back towards me. Just as carefully as she’d stepped into the ring of books, she stepped back out. Her steps were careful in a way that Jenna was
never
careful. Cole’s weirdly blank expression wasn’t just freaking
me
out.

He stood taller, straining for every inch. “This is the best alternative. I see that now. I didn’t always see it, but now it’s clear.” His conviction wavered for a moment, his words uncertain. “If—if there aren’t any books, then there won’t be any English class. And if we don’t have English class, then no one has to fail.”

It sounded like it made sense, but I didn’t buy it. Maybe someone had vented to him about their grade in English, and Cole took it too far to eliminate the problem. At least he wasn’t trying to kill someone, or proving his self-inflicted love. But in the hesitations and moments between his words, I saw something else. Something I couldn’t understand.

“I’m sure she’s a nice girl,” I ventured, “but I’ve got a better idea. A way that you can get rid of that English class entirely without having to set anything on fire.”

His response was pure petulance, shades of the old Cole. “But I
want
to set it on fire.”

“And then what happens to you?” Jenna demanded. “Not exactly the time to be a ringleader, Cole.”

“This is the best alternative!” Cole insisted. “Why don’t you see that? There has to be a fire!”

I looked around, trying to be as subtle as possible.
Where was Quinn?
There were any number of spells that Cole could invoke that would snap to life before we even had a chance to stop it. Spells to create fire were a dime a dozen, and all he would need was a candle’s worth of flame to set the whole thing in motion.

“We’re just trying to understand, buddy. Just explain it so the rest of us understand,” I said, but I wondered if being rational was exactly the wrong approach to take. Maybe it had nothing to do with being logical at all.

“I’m in love!” Cole shouted, his frustration escalating. I spotted Quinn as he blurred into visibility from behind Cole, approaching at a still, slow walk. Each step was chosen with care, and he hesitated with every one, making sure it made as little noise as possible.

“This is not the kind of awkward burning sensation you’re supposed to have when you’re in love!” I fired back.

Jenna just
looked
at me. Even Quinn’s eyebrows judged me.

Cole’s eyes narrowed and he just
stopped.
And the gut feeling I had—the feeling that for whatever reason, Cole was lying to us and setting this fire for some other reason altogether, screamed out a warning. His mouth opened in anger—

Quinn was on him instantly, one gloved hand covering his mouth and the other across the forehead. He whispered spells under his breath, and shifted his hold when Cole’s eyes rolled up in his head and he started to slump.

That was all it took. A few whispered words and Cole was incapacitated.

I looked at the design of books and crouched down to run my fingers along one of them. I expected my fingers to come away wet, evidence of gasoline or whatever else Cole was going to use to ignite the building, but there was nothing. When I tried to kick some of the books aside, they hung together, latched together like magnets.

I tried to pry them apart by hand. They gave, eventually, and with a significant amount of force, but as soon as I waved them closer together, they would snap back into place.

“Impressive,” Jenna said, kneeling down beside me. “I wouldn’t have expected something like this out of Cole.” She looked up and studied the line of books, her lips moving slightly as she worked through something in her head.

Quinn had him in a fireman carry, easily thrown over one shoulder. “Come on, I want to get him out of here. I’ll have the library locked down until we can get someone in here to undo whatever it was that Cole was working towards.”

“It’s some sort of resonance spell, but they usually only amplify sound,” Jenna said, her voice coming from far away. She reached out, ran her fingers along one of the books. “This is
complicated.
I can’t even follow it all. It might be making his spell … bigger?
Where’d Cole learn how to do something like this?”

“That’s not important now,” Quinn said, either from impatience or the strain of holding up our little brother.

Jenna looked forlorn as I dragged her away from the books, her forehead still furrowed in thought even after we’d left the building. “Yeah, you wouldn’t think so,” she said in an aside to herself.

Quinn drove us straight to the hospital, which was now completely under the Congress’s control.

“How many kids are in here already?” Jenna asked.

“About a hundred and thirty.” There were only five hundred kids in our school. In just a couple of weeks, the Prince had infected nearly a quarter of the school.

We had to pull around the rear because of all the construction. I grabbed Cole and we headed back into the hospital. A pair of older women dressed like nurses waited for us inside with a gurney. Once I set him down, one of the women brushed the fringe off his forehead and murmured spells into his skin.

“Put him in with Justin, please,” Quinn said from behind us. One of the women smiled slightly and nodded, and then they pushed their way further into the hospital. “Give them a few minutes to get him settled and then you can probably go visit with both of them.”

Quinn and I went to get coffee while Jenna took a seat in the waiting room. She kept wringing her hands, but whatever it was she tried to wipe away, it never gave up its hold.

“That’s two,” I said quietly. “Three to go.”

“Bailey’s here too,” Quinn said after a momentary pause, looking over my shoulder. “She had Kelly drive her here right after we left. I got the call after we went into the library. Cole freaked her out more than I thought. She’s worried she’ll do something again.”

I closed my eyes. No wonder she wanted us to go on without her. I knew the things that Luca had done to her had left a mark, but I thought that with time she’d start to recover. But now I had to wonder if she’d ever have the chance.

All of us were close in different ways. Some of us weren’t close at all, but Cole and Bailey had their own particular bond. Being the youngest, being the “kids,” they were often pushed to the side while we tried to protect them. They bickered and fought as much as anyone else, but they were probably the most realistic pair of siblings among us.

That meant that Jenna and I were the only ones left. I hated to admit it, but I was surprised and a little impressed that Jenna had lasted this long.

I touched Quinn on the shoulder before he could walk away, and then just as quickly snatched my hand back. He turned, looking down at his shoulder before he met my eyes. “I’m going to stop in to Luca’s room first.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “What are you thinking?”

I wasn’t thinking anything, to be honest. But I still couldn’t let go of the idea that Luca was somehow involved. That he was the one who was hosting the Prince. It made sense, if the Prince was attached to his life energy, then keeping Luca in a coma meant he had free rein of the town.

“I just want to check in. Who knows, maybe crazy uncle Charlie will be there and I can ask him a few more questions.”

I made my way back up to Luca’s floor, only this time it was more active. All the doors were still propped open, but now there were witches walking up and down the halls. When I went to his room and found it empty, I had to trail my way back to the nurse’s station. The nurse had given me the creepy wide eyes that said she knew exactly who I was, and would I please refrain from killing her horribly?

“Far end of the hall,” she squeaked. “Last room on the left.”

Even in the middle of a crisis, some people couldn’t forget how much they hated or feared us.