CHAPTER 10

 

 

 

Morgan knew, without a doubt, this would go down as one of the strangest weeks of his interminably long life. There were many interesting things he’d done and seen to compete for top billing, but this, hands down, was in the running for gold. It sure beat grading papers. At least he had his classes covered for the next week, or until his return. It was one less thing to keep track of at the moment.

He was there in Chicago, chasing after a twenty-something-year-old girl with the embodiment of darkness inside of her and a bad attitude to match. Morgan shook his head, shuffling snow out of his way and tugging his coat tighter as a cold wind blew.

To call it weird would be an understatement.

Karsia stomped ahead and called out to him over her shoulder. “Go inside and sit with them, Morgan. Go sit with them and tell them it will be okay, or whatever it is you have to say to make everyone feel better. Lie to them. I don’t care.” The cold reddened her cheeks. She kept her pace swift to dissuade him from following. “Go back and let me do this.”

Morgan struggled once more to keep up with her. He seemed to be doing that more and more lately. If she was always this fast, he would need to renew his gym membership and get on a treadmill more than once in a blue moon to stay fit.

Maybe he wasn’t doing the best job of watching out for Karsia, like he’d told her family he was, but he was doing the best job he could without tapping into a higher power. He had tension between his shoulders and along his neck to prove it. In that moment, he would have traded his immortal soul for the ability to keep pace with her furious strides. Or to get her alone and away from the drama of her life. Get her to a quiet place where they had time to think instead of just react.

But there he was, braving the snow and fighting off hypothermia for a woman hell-bent on making things as hard as possible.

Even though it wasn’t her fault.

“You’re upset, and I understand,” he ventured. He stumbled down the front walk and shoved his hands deep into his pockets to keep warm.

“Stop placating me and get inside the house. We’ll call it a favor.” Karsia sailed past the car with the crunch of ice under her boots.

“I’m not going— Oh, jeez.” Morgan had stepped in a puddle, breaking the thin ice barrier and instantly soaking half of his left leg. He ran after her, shaking his foot awkwardly. He shivered, and no matter how deep he dug in his pockets, his fingertips felt nothing. “I’m not going back in there without you.”

Why was he following her? He wondered, among other things, what it was about Karsia Cavaldi. What made her interesting to the point where he’d dropped everything to follow her home.

It was because they’d touched hands the first night, and he’d felt it—a tiny quiver of electricity lighting through his body until his senses were fully awake. Morgan knew he’d been coasting on neutral for too long. He’d seen some of the most beautiful women in the world, goddesses and nymphs and fairies, and he’d never experienced a fraction of the electricity he’d felt when Karsia had taken his hand.

She turned, rambling backward so she could face him and talk. “Better yet, Morgan, go home. Be with your family. I came home and look what happened!” She swiveled around, chuckling low in her throat. “Look what happened.”

He could practically see the thoughts circling like sharks in her head. Besides the sorrow and the need for revenge, he saw the guilt. The desire for self-destruction.

“You’re not responsible for your powers vanishing. No one is! It was an accident. Blaming yourself isn’t going to help. The most constructive course of action is finding a way to reverse the, for lack of a better word, possession. Running off to blow someone up isn’t going to fix this.”

“It sure will make me feel better.”

“I can guarantee it won’t.”

“This is a message. And what do you do when someone sends a message? You send a bigger one right back.”

“A message? What do you mean?”

As Karsia marched, her footsteps echoed her heartache back to her. No. Magic. Dying. Mother. Your. Fault. The sadness she’d felt in her brief moment of clarity became a haunting melody, distant and vague. Another, stronger desire rose.

What was the agenda? Why would Orestes go to the trouble of hiring someone to hit Varvara? It seemed a serious move to take, especially considering he still had Zenon in custody. His angle wasn’t clear.

The Harbinger would come and restore balance. Karsia would take her place as the new keeper of the veil. End of story. Right? Which left Orestes and his motives outside the spectrum of logic.

“Will you stop for a second?” Morgan stooped with his hands on his knees and fought to catch his breath. Definitely out of shape, and certainly getting out the treadmill when he returned home. “I’m considerably older than you. Now I sound like my father. Yikes.”

Karsia wasn’t sure what made her slow her steps. She stopped to lean against a nearby tree, the strength of the hickory bubbling beneath the surface. It should have been ready for her use. She would have drawn on it, gladly, absorbing its strength and making it her own.

Weak, she admonished.

“Mom was supposed to be fine, you know.” Karsia spoke conversationally. “She should be sitting at her damn vanity, staring into the mirror with her powder puff in her hand, worrying about her kids and wondering why we aren’t all married off. She should be ordering dinner from a restaurant and complaining when they forget to include extra sauce. Or fighting with Dad and making that annoying little laugh of hers.”

She imitated the sound and regretted it almost immediately. Her mother would like Morgan. Karsia wasn’t sure why that thought popped into her head now. Varvara would appreciate the look of him, his intelligence and wit and dry, biting humor. Not to mention the power in his broad shoulders and strength of mind hidden beneath hair beginning to turn silver. She’d consider the age difference a perk, see the potential in the match, and plan out a future between them. All before learning his name.

“Karsia.” Morgan laid his hand on her shoulder, feeling the cold seeping under her skin. She stared at him with regret so intense he felt it. “I’m not going anywhere. You can trust me to be there for you. We haven’t known each other very long and you have no reason to lean on me, but I’ll be there. It’s okay for you to lean.”

“Hey, back off, buddy. I’m fine.” Karsia peered off into the distance and bit her lip, keeping the rest of her thoughts to herself. “I’ve got this covered. It’s good.” Understanding blossomed then. “I know where I need to go.”

“If you’re talking about coming inside the house and us sitting down and dealing with this like rational adults, then yes. That’s exactly where you need to go. If not, then—”

She smacked both hands in the middle of his chest and sent him flying. He slammed into a nearby maple, knocking his head against a large knot in the trunk. Stunned, Morgan watched through double vision as Karsia took off at a run.

 

**

 

Once again, for the second time in as many days, Karsia pushed her body to its limit and sprinted through the snow. Ice-cold air pumped in and out of her lungs and froze her from the inside. The evil taint gave her a certain immunity, an inhuman strength.

She hardly felt a thing.

Her thoughts urged her forward until her gaze narrowed to a single point. Her lips curved high and brows drew low. Dark pleasure plunged into her heart sharp as a sword.

She ran the considerable distance between Lake Forest and downtown Chicago with little effort. The kind of sweat-less stroll she used to take through a grocery store, this time down frozen sidewalks, past houses and businesses closed due to weather.

Faster, she urged. Approaching the one street she sought above the rest. Bentley Lane. Location of the Great Lakes Claddium.

She ran and dreamed of the things she would do to the responsible parties. Lawns and gardens turned to highway and concrete, glass and steel. With her new power, Karsia had the ability to get the Claddium members to turn on each other, to use their own magic against them and watch light warp to dark. Watch blood spatter and the strong turn weak when they rounded on each other like animals. And she would enjoy making them pay.

It was past time for punishment.

A decisive act. Wasn’t it better this way? To face their threat directly instead of the runaround bullshit games Aisanna and Astix had played before? Wasn’t it more efficient to confront Orestes directly and make him pay, instead of cowering in a cabin behind layers of wards?

They should thank her.

One clear purpose beat like blood through her veins: She would teach them all a lesson and kill several birds with one stone. Revenge for her mother, a reprieve for Aisanna—who had been running from the Claddium since Darkness forced her to attack two of their more prominent members—the release of Zenon, and a clear path for the Harbinger witch without politics getting in the way.

Orestes Voltaire had hunted her family and wreaked havoc with their lives. If Karsia herself hadn’t been so isolated, they would have come after her as well. She was certain of it.

The Claddium. She scoffed. Less a governing body and more a vehicle for personal vendetta. What happened when someone in power went rogue? They must be put down.

Her fingernails bit into the sensitive skin of her palms as she pumped her arms. Atonement must be made for the spilled blood. The credo of her magic meant she would do no harm. But the light had turned its back on her and left her no other option.

Karsia quickened her pace as soon as she saw the booming metropolis looming ahead. She stopped only to survey the scene, the cars winding along busy roads, the hum and bustle of city life.

At once the shadow inside of her didn’t seem quite so much of a burden. It was a gift. It was the perfect answer to their predicament. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Darkness hadn’t cursed her. It had given her access to the right path. Knowledge on how to use her power to protect her family and be gone by the vernal equinox. It was perfect.

She grinned, baring teeth. “Ready or not, assholes, here I come.”

Hitching her jacket collar up to her chin, Karsia bolted along the sidewalks and pushed aside anyone standing in her way. It didn’t take long to reach the building housing the “best and brightest of the magical community.” What a crock of shit. She knew what those people really were. She’d been inside the building with her sisters, traversing the hallways in search of answers. The Claddium elemental heads were nothing but leeches and snakes and creepy-crawly things people hated. They were out for their own gain. Not a good soul could be found behind those walls, their hearts beaten out of them from years of bureaucracy.

Karsia stood a few dozen feet from the utilitarian façade and prepared to do her worst.

There were cars parked along the block, although traffic was thinner in that part of the city. Few random passersby roamed the streets. This area belonged to a hub of magic users, the elementals working together to protect their secrets. Somewhere behind the charm showing the outside world bricks and mortar, behind old warehouse windows dirtied by the years, were the responsible parties.

Karsia stepped into the middle of the street and held out a hand, calling her new power to the forefront. Instead of the usual warmth she felt when accessing her personal magic, there was nothing but burning cold.

A car heading toward her honked and she pushed it away with a thought. A wave of energy lifted the vehicle, flung it onto the sidewalk. Glass shattered when the car slammed into a storefront in a shower of sparks. The horn let out a last strangled hoot when wires snapped and a dust cloud rose into the air.

There was nothing but the abyss inside of her. The brutal necessity of action. The farther she traveled from her family, the more violently she seethed.

“You bastards,” Karsia called, her voice amplified. “Come and face me. Pay for what you’ve done! Orestes Voltaire, I call you out.”

Clouds brewed overhead until they blotted out the light of the sun. With the snap of her fingers, thunder clapped, the sound of it beating inside her head.

Her mother was lying in a hospital bed like a stunned animal in a slaughterhouse. And for what? For nothing. There was no righteousness there. No one acting in the interest of the common good. Only gluttony and an insatiable desire for more. A vindictive step taken against the people assumed to have it.

“I said come out and face me!” Putting the taunt forth, Karsia had no doubt about the follow-through. If her opposition had the guts to respond.

Energy crackled at her fingertips until her hair stood on end. She moved steadily forward, and plants sprang forth in her wake, a perverse version of the magic she normally had. Trees burst from the cement and snapped through telephone lines, water pipes. Twisted trunks wound like vines and strangled each other. Glass shattered, metal crunched, and vehicles slammed on their brakes to avoid the surprise forest.

Screams filled the air as people poured from the offices surrounding her. They clustered around the devastation and ran like chickens with no heads. She had no business with them; let them run.

“Come on, you cowards. Stop hiding behind your desks and show me what kind of guts you’ve got! Show me why you’re the best of us and my mother is dying.” A chill crept over her, through her ankles up to her knees and hips. Karsia welcomed it. “Are you scared?” She sent out a wave and buckled the sidewalk, causing any who ran to stumble and fall. “Are you afraid of what I can do? Of what I’ll do to you?”

Feeling them there, burrowed in their offices, had her cranking her power up another notch. Despite the season, she brought rain, hurling it down from the sky to pelt the ground. Each drop struck with unnatural force.

“Karsia, stop!”

The voice had her turning to look over her shoulder. There stood Morgan in the middle of the melee, with his arms held in front of him to protect his face.

“Don’t do this,” he urged her, taking several careful steps forward.

“Why won’t you just leave me alone?” she cried.

Lightning slashed the sky, responded to her unspoken request. Magic with meat behind it.

“I’ll never leave you like this.”

Karsia called the sky down on her. Gales of wind buffeted her as lances of fire struck the ground in a circle around her. Her prison, her curse. Her grief. She called all those forces to her. Light power, dark power, at her disposal. Her slender hands held the fate of the world then. Her hair flapped around her like wings of birds.

Cement crackled and broke while energy arced and danced.

She was alone, with rage and regret her only companions. Her power sang as she embraced those. Magic from beyond the veil rushed through her.

After what she planned to do, she would never be able to go back to her family. Not now. Her need for revenge would push her past the point of no return. Fully dark, fully elemental, giving up her goodness forever. Until she took her fated place.

At least she would get for them the justice they rightly deserved. She was the only one with the means and the unfeeling determination to follow through.

She raised her arms and embraced the tempest. Darkness had done this to her, for her. And she would use it for a worthwhile cause. She would make her sacrifice mean something.

Morgan shielded his eyes from the gusts and took mincing steps forward, trying to keep his balance when the ground buckled and shifted. He lost his footing and flung his arms in front of him like a surfer riding an unpredictable wave.

“Karsia, I’m begging you!” he called to her. “Don’t do this. You’re only hurting yourself.” He had to stop her. If it was the last thing he did, expended every bit of his considerable resources, he would stop her before she hurt anyone. Or hurt herself beyond the point of no return. It would be the final nail in her coffin sealing her fate, and that he refused to allow.

“Morgan.” Huge limbs burst from the ground and reached toward the second story of the building. “Go back and save yourself from me.”

“I can’t.” His face was pale and his shoulders hunched. There was no hint of fear in his presence. He refused to be intimidated.

“You have no right to interfere. Back away now before you get hurt!”

“I’m not leaving you to destroy yourself or this place. The people inside, they didn’t hurt you. They’re innocent. Like you. They’re only trying to do their jobs.”

Morgan leaped out of the way as the forest grew beneath his feet. Limbs scratched at neighboring glass and a terrible keening screech filled the air. He pushed everything aside to focus on Karsia. He couldn’t get any closer without risking electrocution. The lightning she summoned danced in a protective barrier around her, its electrostatic charge causing her hair to rise. She was the angel of vengeance, of death, madness glistening in her eyes.

“They can’t get away with doing this to her. To me! Someone needs to pay.”

“Then don’t let it be you. I am begging you, Karsia,” Morgan pleaded. “Reconsider what you want to do here.”

A dark presence wrapped itself around her, there in the blackness of her pupils, the glow of silver light in her hands. Morgan would never again doubt what she said was true. This was not her. It was something else entirely. A being outside of normal reckoning who would stop at nothing to watch the city burn. A second coming of the great Chicago fire.

“I won’t let those responsible go unpunished,” she insisted in a voice that sounded of doom. “Let me do what I do best.”

As if to prove her words, Karsia imploded the nearest building. Three floors toppled to the ground and a mushroom cloud of debris and fire rose. No life inside, nor would there be again. She’d made sure of that.

People shrieked in terror and the sound was music to her ears. Frightened city folk ran for their lives away from the center of the pandemonium toward safety wherever they could find it. She let them escape; her business was not with them, those lost souls who could not escape their own minds. Couldn’t think outside of themselves.

“If you were completely gone then you would have forgotten your vows and killed everyone in the city without a second thought,” Morgan yelled to her, striving to be heard about the chaos. Then he gave in to himself. To the god he tried to hide beneath the flesh of a man. This time, when he spoke, Karsia had no choice but to listen. “You are not gone, earth witch. Let me help you.”

She shook her head. “No! There’s nothing you can do. You don’t know what it’s like to live with this thing inside of me. It’s eating away at me, and for what? For someone to attack my mother and make it look like an accident? Someone has to pay the price for this, for what they did to her! And I am the person to make it happen. It’s my right.”

The storm stole the moisture from the air in preparation for the torrent to come. The fury she would unleash on the Claddium would be unprecedented. The forest, if left unchecked, would reclaim the city and its inhabitants would fall. She knew the malevolence in their hearts. Tasted their dark deeds on her tongue.

It would be no worse than the fate awaiting them on the other side.

She clenched her fist and a blast rippled through the street, radiating from where she stood and drawing the guilty parties forward. They would do her bidding because they had no choice in the matter. “I said come out, Orestes Voltaire!”

At last she saw them. Drawn from their fortress. Forced outside.

A crowd gathered in front of the Claddium building, with Orestes and his goons at the helm. Instead of appearing rattled he linked his arms across his chest and raised an eyebrow. A dare.

Rage brought a blush to her face as thunder boomed and threatened to deafen them.

Morgan held out a hand. “Karsia—”

“I won’t turn away from this path, Morgan. Their lives for our safety. It is right.” She prepared to launch her final attack like a deadly arrow toward a target.

“That’s it.” Morgan cracked his neck and squared his shoulders. “I’ve had enough.”

“What do you think you’ll do? What can any of you do? I hold the balance. And now I claim my prize!”

Karsia raised her arms to send her lightning lancing toward Orestes, who was tensed for battle with his own magic at the ready.

Calling on his inherent gifts, Morgan embraced his god-derived powers to halt the mess she’d started. He approached Karsia calmly but quickly, only a moment before she could unleash her curse, walking into the maelstrom that formed a vortex around her as if it were not there at all. “Enough.”

He reached out, touching her at the nape of her neck. Like a suddenly sleepy child, she collapsed, her power tapped out. Clouds dissipated. The maelstrom disappeared. The crackle of energy ceased and an unnatural silence filled the air.