The Better Part of Darkness

Aaron was revealed. Intelligence. Creativity. Valor. Anger on behalf of Emma and me. Worry for Bryn. Determination to succeed. And something else, too, a desire to thwart Mynogan, or perhaps it was the entire House of Abaddon. I sensed a history here. One I couldn’t quite see in an aura alone. I probed deeper, and suddenly hit an invisible brick wall.

“Second lesson,” Aaron said, “learn how to block those that can see inside of you.” Amusement and a splash of ego flickered in his eyes. “Nice try, though.”

Now that I understood I had to let go in order to use what was inside of me, I was surprised at how easy it was to tap into the power. Of course, it was simple doing it here in this peaceful library with a teacher who knew what he was doing. If he hadn’t been blocked, I could have seen into his heart. But outside, in the real world, where emotions ruled me and my daughter was at risk …

“You’ll have plenty of raw power to draw upon. For you, the challenge will be identifying which one to use. You have Adonai power, and with it the common power all Elysians are naturally born with. Same for the Charbydon side of you. You also have your human strengths and the gifts that have been passed down through the blood of your family.”

“Okay, so how do I know which ones to use?” I was well enough versed in Elysian and Charbydon to know what kind of powers were probably passed along to me, but I wasn’t sure how to pick and choose them at will.

“It’s simple, really. They don’t blend well, obviously, or else Mynogan would have been successful at this a long time ago. They clash, correct?” I nodded and he continued. “Makes them easy to identify. The darkness and the light. Elysia and Charbydon. Neither one is essentially good or bad—they are just types of energy, power—it’s how they are manipulated that turns them into good and evil. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, it’s like wealth. The actual money isn’t good or evil—it doesn’t care either way—it’s what you do with it.”

“Exactly,” he said, impressed. “So, just like you decide which weapon to use, you decide which power will deliver the most … bang for your effort. The powers will never blend, Charlie. They’ll always be at odds.”

“Great, so, I’m cursed.”

“In a manner, yes. Honestly, you’re lucky you’re not dead yet.”

I was about to throw out some general retort when I paused. “What do you mean, yet?”

It didn’t take a genius to see he hadn’t meant to spill that little kernel of information. “It means that you can’t live forever with opposing powers. One day, it will kill you.”

Just like the others before me.

But one day wasn’t now, and that was all I needed to know. After Emma was safe, I’d figure it out. “So, how do I fight?”

“With your mind. Someone like Mynogan manipulates. He will use whatever fears you have to win. He took Emma from you, took Hank’s power away. He fights dirty. Whatever you send at him, he sends back double.”

I remembered back in the lab when I sent out a bolt of power; Mynogan had absorbed it and then sent it flying back to me. “He takes the energy I send, adds his own, and sends it back.”

“And you can do that, too. You have all his power; his entire genetic code is now in you, Charlie. Abaddons are masters at coercion, mind control, and calling on dark forces to work for them. They can steal your breath with an invisible hand. But, so can you. The trick is to be calm in the heat of battle, to control the power and be the master. You don’t need to learn chants or spells—for specific things, yes, but not for fighting. Fighting comes from within, and you own that.”

His words stirred my confidence. Mynogan thought he could control me. But he was forgetting one important thing. I was as powerful as he was. He was just banking on the fact that I didn’t know how to use it. “What about the Adonai priestess? Her DNA is in me, too.”

“This is where it gets good,” he said. “Besides all the auras, heightened intuition, and being able to heal and manipulate matter and energy, Adonai can control the elements. They could sink an island, bring fire to the land by lightning, destroy or create. Theoretically, you should be able to strangle Mynogan from ten yards, manifest his greatest fear, and zap his ass with a lightning bolt.”

Despite the dire situation, a laugh escaped me. A disbelieving laugh. I stood, stretching my legs and arms. He made it sound so easy, and maybe one day it would be. Unless it killed me first.

“It’s all theory, of course. You’re an anomaly, a lone wolf, Charlie. It has taken thousands of years in the evolution of your family and what Mynogan has done to make you what you are now. I can’t say for certain what powers you hold or what you will become. I’m guessing here.” Aaron rolled up the scroll. A shiver of revulsion went through me to see him touch what was once a person’s or being’s skin. After he secured it in the case, whispering his enchantment over the lock, we exited the library.

“So what does ash have to do with all this?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s all connected somehow. Ash is made from a Charbydon flower called a Bleeding Soul.”

“Sangurne N’ashu. It’s a—”

“A myth, I know. But it is real and the extract is being used to make the drug.”

He paused at the bottom of the staircase, and I realized I’d actually stumped him. “They’re two separate myths, calling the darkness and the myth of the Bleeding Souls.” He shoved his hands in his pocket and let out a quizzical huff. “I don’t know.”

“Yeah, that makes two of us.”

We went silently up the stairs, back to the room we had appeared in earlier.

“So how much, exactly, do you like my sister?” I asked as we stepped inside the pentagram.

A curtain fell over his features. His green eyes became hooded and unreadable, and his mouth stretched into a grim line. Sore subject obviously, but what I’d seen earlier in his aura didn’t lie. “Enough,” he finally said in a flat, even voice, giving nothing away.

I frowned. “Does that mean enough you don’t want to talk about it, or enough as in you like her enough, as in you like her, like her?”

Apparently, I wasn’t getting anything out of him because he chose that moment to grab my hand. “Wait!” I needed a second to prepare, just to take a deep breath. Then a thought occurred to me. “Can I do this, too?”

“You want to try?”

“Hell, no,” I blurted. He broke into a wide grin, something that would have devastated a weaker woman, and I laughed. “I’d end up in the middle of the Atlantic or the top of Mount Everest. I’ll leave the traveling up to you.”

“For now,” he said, closing his eyes, and then whoosh.

We were dispersed into thin air, reappearing on the landing at Bryn’s flat.

CHAPTER 15

I despised the way blinking in and out of reality made me feel, as though my body weighed significantly more than it did. It was like that moment when a downward elevator stops and your body feels like it keeps going for a second or two. Yeah. This was a hundred times worse than that. But, on the brighter side, the sensation went away after ten seconds or so.

Aaron adjusted his silk shirt, swiped his long fingers through his ebony hair, and then rang the doorbell.

The door opened and there was Will, standing there looking down at me. Same handsome face, same stormy blue eyes, same sun-kissed brown hair … Except, I realized, as my eyes soaked him in, that Will’s crooked smile always came out of affection and happiness, not the crooked smile of the eternally sarcastic.

Rex.

Disappointment blew through me like a desert wind.

“Lesson one,” Aaron softly reminded me from behind.