The Gathering Darkness (41 page)

“That will never happen,” Marcus said. “I’ll die first.”

I swallowed pushing the acid back down my throat.

Margaret laughed darkly. “I won’t allow that.” Her gaze lowered to the floor. “Beth dear, I don’t remember summoning you.”

I looked past her to see Beth standing meekly at the bottom of the stairs.

“You didn’t,” Beth said.

Without warning an ear-piercing shriek cut through the air. Margaret’s face contorted into a horrendous mask of distress. Her back arched. She staggered forward. A network of thin cracks formed in the stone beneath her feet. Like a blip in time, the room altered again. As the power shifted, strength and magic flowed through me once more, lightening me. Margaret spun around to face a trembling Beth. The hilt of a dagger protruded from Margaret’s back. Blood, as black as her robe, cascaded down her back, pooling on the floor.

By the look on everyone’s face, they were all as stunned as I was.

With just a look, Margaret began choking the life from Beth.

Quickly, I regained my senses and turned to Courtney and Luke. “Forget you were ever here.”

“No problem,” Luke said.

With ease, magic flowed through my arms and out the tips of my tingling fingers. With a crackle, the magical binding ropes that restrained my friends loosened and fell to the floor at their feet. With Margaret in distress and engaged in Beth’s demise, it was easy to override her spell.

I called upon all the guardians for aid in sending Courtney and Luke back to Boston. Courtney latched onto Luke’s arm. A few seconds later, they disappeared into thin air.

“I cast a spell on them so they’d forget this night,” Marcus said.

I nodded, unable to look into his eyes just yet.

Margaret was too involved with Beth now to care about Luke and Courtney anymore. Poor Beth, she lay awkwardly on the hard floor, struggling to speak. Her bulging eyes searched the room until they found Marcus. With a gurgled last breath, she mumbled out a word that sounded like, “Father.” After death, her pain-filled eyes stayed wide open.

Marcus and I exchanged looks.

“What did she mean, ‘Father?’” I whispered to him.

Marcus shrugged, looking just as confused and freaked out as I did.

Margaret, oozing hatred, turned back to us. Her beauty was slightly marred by the contortion of pain her face held.

“What did Beth just say?” Marcus demanded.

Margaret’s chest heaved. She staggered toward us, stopping in front of the crystal septagram and with a raspy voice said, “She called you ‘Father.’”

“Why?”

“Because, she is Kalan and Cyra’s love child.”

My mouth fell open. Beside me, I heard Robyn gasp and saw her hand fly to her mouth.

A sharp breath of air expelled from Marcus. “She’s lying!” The loudness of his voice made me look at him. His face muscles tightened. A blue vein was visible under the tanned skin at his temple. I’d never seen him look so angry.

“I do not lie.” Though, Margaret’s shoulders rose up and down in her efforts to breathe, she looked equally as threatening.

“Why does she look so young?” I asked.

“Beth died in Wales when she was young.”

I thought I saw a flash of hurt in her eyes, but I could have mistaken emotional pain for physical.

“How did she die? Was she murdered?” I kept up the interrogation.

“She died because she was part … .” Margaret hesitated.

“Because she was part demon,” I finished for her.

“Yes. Had she been part fairy and not demon, she would have lived, but demons do not spawn well with other races.” As she spoke, the spark was leaving her.

Robyn shuddered. “We have to get out of here,” she said in a rush. She pulled on my arm, but I didn’t budge.

Megan, Sammy and Evan all held defensive stances in front of the stairs.

“I can’t go without the others,” I said to Robyn.

On the other side of me, Marcus was very still, but I felt magic emanate from him.

On the table, Margaret’s dagger trembled then lifted. Quickly, I figured out what he was doing. I stood still and watched him work his magic. His face was an intense mask of concentration. The dagger lifted higher, turned, then hurled toward Margaret, piercing her black heart before she could twist herself away. She had been too weakened by Beth’s attempt at murder to react fast enough. Another ear-piercing shriek split the air. Margaret fell. With a cracking sound, the fissures in the floor traveled to where she now lay. The iron stand toppled and fell. The crystal crashed with it, sending hundreds of shards across the floor.

“That won’t kill her,” Robyn said. “We need fire.”

Evan left Sammy and Megan’s side and lunged for Marcus. Instinctively, I lifted my hand to stop him with a spell.

“No!” Marcus yelled. “I changed him back.”

When Evan reached Marcus, he threw his arms around his brother and hugged him.

“I don’t know what to say,” Evan said.

“We’ll talk later,” Marcus said, patting his back.

While Margaret withered on the floor in obvious agony, I took the hint from Marcus and turned Sammy back to her old self. She ran to me shrieking.

“It’s okay, Sammy, were leaving. Where’s Megan?” I asked, looking around the room.

“She must have taken off,” Marcus said.

“We have to find her,” Robyn said.

“We will,” I said. “But right now we have to see to my sister’s death.”

Margaret was reduced to a weakened heap on the floor. Her bony fingers gripped the hilt of the dagger and pulled it out of her chest. It clanked to the stone. Beside me, I heard Robyn mumble something. The rope Margaret had bound Luke and Courtney with, was now tied tightly around her, thanks to Robyn’s magic.

“Fire,” Robyn said, panicked.

“Come on,” Marcus said, pulling me by the hand to the bottom of the stairs.

Once all of us, excluding Margaret and Beth were in front of the stairs, Marcus, Robyn and I concentrated all our energy on conjuring fire on a stone floor. It wasn’t hard. Almost as soon as we’d begun, a circle of flame surrounded Margaret. Ancient languages I wasn’t familiar with rolled off her tongue in the form of spells and curses. Somewhere in the back of my head, I heard Evan yell over the chaos that he was going to go look for Megan. I was too involved in the spell to stop him.

When we were satisfied the circle of fire was strong enough to hold Margaret, we stopped our chant.

Sammy was huddled next to me clutching my robe tightly with two fists. When I didn’t budge, she yanked on my sleeve. “C’mon, Brooke. She can’t escape now.”

“How do we know she’s going to die? Fire kills witches, but how do we know it will kill a demon? And how do we know she won’t come back?” Marcus asked.

“She doesn’t have a soul. She can’t be reincarnated. And, unless she has someone to bring her body back to life and keep her that way, as she did for Beth, she cannot come back,” I said.

“I wonder how she kept Beth alive all these years,” he said.

“Morwenna was probably able to revive Beth and keep her alive because she was part
witch
.” I emphasized the word ‘witch’ rather harshly, throwing it in his face. Then I looked at Beth’s lifeless body and softened. “That part of her had a soul.” She looked like a child. I wanted to go to her and close her eyes, but she was too close to the flames. Silent tears ran down my cheeks for Beth.

We stayed long enough to watch Margaret’s robe catch fire. After that, I couldn’t watch anymore. Marcus, who didn’t want to leave until she was reduced to a heap of ash, had to be coaxed to leave.

M
argaret shrilled out spells and curses as she burned. The balance of power was shifting again. With her use of magic as a last ditch effort to save herself, we couldn’t use ours to whisk ourselves away from the Inn, so we ran. Ear-piercing shrieks chased us through the attic, echoing sharply against the acute pitch of the roof. The sounds of a demon-witch dying were something I was sure I would never forget.

Our feet pounded heavily down the narrow attic stairs and down the hallways. When I came to the main staircase, I paused and watched as smoke and flame billowed out of the attic dormer windows in the painting. Sammy caught my wrist on her way by and yanked me away, practically throwing me off my feet.

We made it to the bottom of the stairs and bolted through the front door. I stopped on the walkway in front of the doorstep to catch my breath. Marcus stopped behind me. Sammy and Robyn didn’t stop running until they were closer to the street. Evan and Megan were still inside somewhere.

I tore my robe off and threw it on the ground.

“Why are you stopping?” Marcus asked, between heavy breaths.

A moment of silence passed between us.

“Brooke?”

I drew a shaky breath of fresh air into my lungs. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his robe drop to the ground on top of mine.

At first I didn’t know what to say, and then without thinking, accusations started spilling from my mouth.

I turned to look at him. He winced as his eyes dropped to the front of the shirt of his that I wore, generously stained with my blood.

“Did Christian know about … Cyra?” It pained me to even say her real name.

“Only after the binding. By then it was too late.”

“But Kalan knew everything in Wales and kept it from Bryn.”

“At the time, Kalan didn’t know Cyra was Bryn’s sister, or that Cyra turned into Morwenna.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you were with someone else.”

All hell was breaking loose around us, and there I stood, in front of the burning Ravenwyck, a jealous sixteen-year-old, confronting her boyfriend about a past girlfriend. I knew I was acting childishly. I also knew how much I loved Marcus and that none of the past mattered, but my emotions ruled the moment.

“That’s two past lives you’ve been with someone else before me … in that way.”

“You were with Jason,” Marcus said. I knew by his tone, he’d said it out of desperation.

I shook my head. “No. Claire was never with Jason in that way, only Christian.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“And Bryn had only ever been with Kalan.”

The acrid scent of something burning other than wood wafted from the open door, accompanied by wispy tendrils of smoke. I turned my head away and stepped to the side of the walkway into the clear air.

“C’mon, we have to get out of here.” Marcus flicked his head back and forth anxiously, from me to the smoke.

My stubbornness persisted. I ignored the danger.

“Who were you with before I came to Deadwich?”

He took a step closer and circled his arms around me, ignoring my puny struggles to break free. I finally conceded and softened against him.

Marcus lowered his head and spoke into my hair. “I haven’t been with anyone in that way in this lifetime.”

I contemplated that for a moment. “No one?”

He shook his head. “I guess I’ve been saving myself for you.”

I let my forehead drop to his shoulder. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter, really. None of it matters.” As I blabbered on, his arms tightened around me. “The past is the past. I’m just tired and cranky … and hungry.”

He smoothed the back of my tangled hair. I took a deep breath of leather into my lungs. His hands found the sides of my face and he lifted it to his.

The corners of his mouth twitched into the promise of a smile. “We have a lot to look forward to, plus a future we’ve never had before.” His eyebrows rose slightly, smoothing out the creases.

“Do you think you could ever forgive me?”

“If anyone needs forgiveness, it’s me.”

“No. I’m really sorry. I can’t believe after everything that has just happened I had to act like a jealous teenager. It doesn’t matter what happened in the past.”

“Whatever happened, I only ever loved
you
.”

“I know.” And I did.

Oblivious to our surroundings, we stood in front of the burning Ravenwyck and kissed.

The sharp caw of a bird ended our tender moment. Marcus’ lips jerked away from mine. We looked up. A large raven circled above us, spiraling downward. Something shiny was clutched in one claw. It spiraled lower. A claw opened, releasing the object. It fell into Marcus’ hand.

I stared at it, mesmerized.

Draped across his fingers, was my amulet. The raven landed on top of a nearby tree and looked down at us. I stared into its dark and familiar eyes. It stared back.

Something clicked inside me then—the innocent eyes, the raven hair. “Oh, my God. I think the raven is Beth. I knew she had a soul.” The raven’s head bobbed, as if to confirm my theory. “Thank you.” I mouthed the words to it.

The huge black bird spread its wings and tore into the sky. We watched it fly over the rooftops until it was out of sight. I felt at peace knowing Beth was free. I looked at Marcus, tears rimming my eyelids.

He turned his gaze from the sky back to me, then without words, he placed the amulet around my neck where it belonged. It felt right. I closed my eyes, spilling the pools of liquid down my cheeks. Marcus wiped the tears from my face and pulled me close.

“The roof’s on fire,” Sammy shouted from the other end of the walkway.