Shades of Darkness (33 page)

Without harm, without pain . . .
The gods require blood.
Maybe the kids doing the summoning hadn't been hurt, but the gods demanded a price.
Someone
had paid. And that someone was Jane. Who would it be the next time?

“Nothing is free,” I said, forcing down the image of Munin perched on my sink, my blood pooled around me. “What about Jane? How was she involved?”

“She wasn't,” Jonathan said. “I already told you—it was a suicide. A tragedy.”

“Then why the hell was there a ring around her body?” I asked. I glared around the room. “Was it one of you? Did you sacrifice her?”

Jonathan put a hand on my shoulder. “You need to calm down, Kaira. Jane was not involved in this, and no one here was involved in her death. We aren't trying to harm others—we are trying to further art.”

“Then explain the ring,” I demanded. “Why was it there? Why was she a sacrifice?”

Jonathan said nothing.

“Why don't you just join us for tonight?” he finally said. “Leave your misconceptions at the door for another hour and we'll show you there's nothing at all diabolical here. We are merely exploring ancient rituals and integrating them into a modern practice. It's no different from praying before a recital or giving thanks for a good show.”

“Then why the locked door?” I asked.

“Magic has always been scrutinized. What the world doesn't understand, it fears, and we have no room for fear or hatred here. This is a place of learning. Of connection.”

I wanted to hate him. I wanted to scream. But the trouble was, everything he said made sense, and that made it worse. I grew up with a pagan mother—I'd helped with rituals and solstices, made her charms and teas. I believed what he said—the gods were there to be invoked, and many were the beneficial sort. But as Munin had warned, there were more gods than there were stars in the sky. And not all of them wanted humanity to flourish.

“Who are you invoking?” I asked.

Jonathan just smiled.

“Not all gods are named,” he said. “Come, we don't have much time. Kaira, if you'd stand over here.”

“No.”

He paused and looked at me.

“No?”

“I'm not doing this.” I gestured to the circle on the floor. “This is wrong. You're playing with something you shouldn't, and yeah, maybe a few of you haven't gotten hurt, but others have. People are
dead
, Jonathan. My friends. They're dead, and I know it's because of what you're doing here. You're invoking
something
, and whatever it is demands payment. Maybe not your life, but the life of someone else. You don't just get free magic. You need to stop, before someone else gets hurt.”

Jonathan studied me for a long moment.

“Kaira, I wasn't expecting this from you. Surely you see you're being irrational?”

“This can't go on,” I replied. I looked around the room, to Tina and Kai and the other musicians and artists I knew only by face. “You guys . . . you're toying with something you shouldn't be messing with. Kids are dying. And they're dying because of you.”

“I think you should leave,” Jonathan said. “Normally, I wouldn't have invited someone in like this, not without a more thorough screening. I'd thought you were a little more open-minded than the rest, but seeing as you're already leading a witch hunt . . .”

He turned and walked toward the door. I didn't move.

Why didn't they see? How could I get them to stop? I wanted to rip my hair out. This was it. This was the key. And no one seemed to give a shit.

“You guys . . . you're killing people. I know you think you aren't, but you are. I've seen it. First hand. What you're doing is wrong. You have to stop. Please.” It wasn't until I reached the end that I realized there were tears in my eyes. But the kids weren't having it. Tina actually looked sad.

“I thought better of you,” she said. “We're all sad about Mandy and Jane. That's partially why we're here. To connect with them. To honor them. I wish you could see that. I wish you weren't so blinded by your own fear.”

I opened my mouth. I wanted to slap her.

But how could I show them I'd seen the other side? I'd toyed with these powers and felt the full backlash.

“Nothing is free,” I said. “Everything you're doing has a price. And you're making other people pay it.”

Jonathan's hand was on my shoulder. He led me to the door and unlocked it for me.

“I'll tell them,” I said. “I'll tell them what you're doing.”

“And I'll tell them you've read too many fantasies.” He said it with remorse. That was the worst part—he wasn't vengeful or power hungry. He thought I was actually in the wrong. “I don't want to play these cards, Kaira, but if push comes to shove I'll have to recommend you graduate in absentia. After all, with your thesis and the stress you're under, it would be an easy connection to think you might be inclined to suffer delusions. I don't want it to come to that. So for both of our sakes, pretend you weren't here. I'm sorry to have believed in you.”

Then, before I could rebut, he closed the door and locked it.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to kick and pound on the damn door until he opened it. I wanted to do anything I could to interrupt their stupid little ritual. If they went through it again, someone would get hurt. If they were invoking something darker, they might not know what was going on. They might not actually know the price other people were paying. And that ignorance was more dangerous than willful evil.

I stood there for a good fifteen minutes. I couldn't hear anything on the other side of the door and had no clue if they were waiting for me to leave or had already started. Leaving felt like admitting defeat; worse, it felt like taking responsibility. If something went wrong, if someone got hurt . . . it would be my fault. Because I hadn't stopped it.

What happened to not getting involved? What happened to graduating and going to college and living a normal life?

The questions were transparent. They didn't matter, not anymore. I had to stop this. But no one in their right mind was going to believe me. I needed someone at my side to help convince the faculty to make Jonathan leave, or to shut this down. Maybe, if I called my mom, she could do something about this. I needed her, needed someone who could actually take Jonathan down, prevent him from hurting someone else.

Or you need me.
The voice wasn't Munin's. It was the violet-eyed girl, the goddess with no name. I felt her hands on the back of my neck, a gentle caress. But it wasn't just her hands. It was Brad's, as he pulled me close, as he whispered in my ear and pushed her image down.

No one will believe you about this,
Brad said.
Just like why they would never believe you about me. You didn't fight against me; you won't fight against this. You will let them die, Kaira, because you will never stand up for yourself.

I squeezed my eyes shut and leaned against the door, tried to block him out, but he was there, beside me, against me, his cologne in my nostrils and his saliva on my tongue.

Your friends will die because of you,
he whispered.
And you will run away again. You are weak, Kaira. And you always will be.

“No.”

I don't know where the word came from, but it didn't feel like mine. It was a flame in my chest, the tiniest spark in the darkness, the glint of the moon on a raven's eye. Brad hovered there, in the emptiness, a shit-eating grin on his face.

The flame grew.

“I'm done hiding from you,” I whispered. “I'm done hiding from what you've done.”

He stepped forward, reached out to touch me. But he wasn't alone in the void of my mind. Ethan was there, and Oliver. My mother and Elisa.

And Chris.

“I'm not broken,” I said.

The spark inside grew, became a rage.

“I'm not going to let anyone get hurt because I was afraid. Not again. Not by you, and not by this.”

Brad laughed.

You couldn't save yourself. How are you going to save anyone else?

“I
did
save myself,” I replied. There, in the darkness, the violet-eyed girl floated. Waiting for me. “And I'm not going to run away again.”

I opened my eyes, the flame inside me hot, raging. I knew what I had to do.

Or rather, I knew what I couldn't do again.

I turned and pounded on the wood door over and over until someone finally opened it. It wasn't Jonathan, it was Kai.

“Kaira,” he said, “What are you doing—”

I pushed past him and into the room. The kids all surrounded the circle, chanting something softly. Jonathan stood in the center of the ring with his arms raised, his head tilted back in invocation.

I didn't think or call out. I ran headfirst into the circle and swung.

•  •  •

Darkness.

I knew, in the far corners of my mind, that this was somewhere in between. That the circle had been a gateway of sorts. That knowledge was infinitesimal compared to the man floating in front of me. Jonathan was there in the darkness, frozen, my fist inches away from his face. But it wasn't Jonathan holding my attention. It was the force behind him. Around him. Within him. A ghostly white light that seethed in the stillness, a haze of snow and shadow that froze me to the bone.

He is coming.

Behind the spectral form of Jonathan appeared the girl. Her violet eyes were sad. Even Munin on her shoulder appeared upset.

“What is that?” I asked. My lips didn't move, but the thought carried through the silence like a shout.

“The Endbringer,” she replied. “The god your professor has been summoning.”

“I don't understand.”

“There has always been a balance between the realms of gods and men. Heaven and Hell, Valhalla and Niflheim, Olympus and Hades—they have many names, and they have always been at war for human worship. But this . . . this god, he is not of those worlds. He was cast aside, and now, he desires revenge. With every sacrifice in his name, his power grows. And now, he tries to breach your world.” She looked to Jonathan. “If he breaks free, if he upsets the balance, he will destroy us all.”

The Tree Will Burn.
I didn't understand what that had to do with anything, but I didn't care, not anymore. I knew what I had to do. The bastard had killed Jane. He wouldn't kill again.

“You cannot take him as you are,” the girl said, following my thoughts. “You must invoke me.”

“Will I die?” I asked. My voice didn't waiver as much as it should have.

“In a sense,” Munin said. “But it is the only way the rest will live.”

“Then I'll do it. I invoke you.”

The girl smiled. There was so much sadness in those lips. Munin cawed and flew from her shoulder, his wings unfolding into a greater darkness as she stepped forward and the world faded to black.

“Our will be done.”