A Glimpse of Darkness Read online

  “Yes,” Douglas said.

  “But you’re not going back.”

  “No. Not planning to.”

  “You didn’t return your security card?”

  “I—I forgot.” Sweat beaded on his lip. He glanced at each of us, trying to think of a phrase that would placate us and let him drive away. He thought we were crazy, and the way I felt at that moment, he wasn’t far wrong.

  “Hmm,” Annalise said, as though she was unsatisfied with his answer. There was a moment of silence. Douglas couldn’t bear to leave it unfilled.

  “Look, I don’t know what the problem is,” he said. “I’m sure we can do something to work all this out. Right? I’m sure it’s just been a misunderstanding or something.”

  Annalise seemed thoughtful. “Maybe you’re right, Douglas.”

  I wondered if this was the moment she would kill them both.

  That made him a little bolder. “Sure, sure, I understand. We’re just a little confused. All of us. The baby didn’t call me Daddy, right, Meg? He’s too young for that.

  “Meg and I have always wanted a son, but we were never blessed until just this winter. See? We’re all just a little mixed up.”

  “One of us is,” Annalise said. “Because you have a front-facing car seat in there.”

  We all looked into the backseat. A plastic car seat was buckled onto the far side of the infant’s seat. A small one. The boy who had just … I wasn’t ready to approach that thought yet, but he was too big to be sitting in such a small car seat.

  Had they lost more than one? Had they forgotten that, too?

  Douglas and Meg looked to each other for an explanation. Silence. Douglas turned to us and said: “We’re bringing it to my sister?” As if he was guessing.

  “There are scorch marks on it,” I said. They were the same sort of marks on the ground where the boy had …

  The Bentons didn’t seem to know what to make of that. The blank confusion on their faces was fascinating. They really were enchanted. My anger was still going strong, but it wasn’t directed at them anymore. I was beginning to pity them.

  Meg went to the backseat, unbuckled the car seat, and heaved it toward the woods. It bounced once on the gravel and disappeared into a patch of nettles.

  Douglas glanced at me nervously. “I don’t know who put that there. Really.” Then he turned toward Annalise. “Do you want money? Is that it?”

  Annalise gave him a sour smile. She took the scrap wood from her pocket and laid it against the station wagon, then against Douglas’s ample belly. The designs twisted, but more slowly than before.

  “Does this hurt?” Annalise asked.

  “No,” Douglas replied.

  “Tell your wife, because I’m going to do this to her, too.”

  She walked around the car and laid the scrap of wood on Meg’s palm. Douglas stared at something fascinating in the gravel at his feet.

  That’s when I noticed his hands. They were red, swollen, and shiny wet. Burned. He didn’t seem to be in pain. If I pointed them out to him the way we had pointed out the car seat, would he suddenly “remember” them? Would he suddenly be in terrible pain?

  Annalise leaned into the Volvo and yanked on the gearshift. Then she walked to the front of the car, laid her tiny hand on the bumper, and shoved it. It rolled out of the ditch onto level ground. She started toward the van. “Ray, let’s go.”

  “Get out of here, Douglas,” I said.

  “Yeah, Douglas,” Annalise said. “Get far away from Hammer Bay, and don’t come back.”

  We didn’t need to tell him twice. Douglas jumped into his car and peeled out of the lot.

  I watched them go, feeling my adrenaline ebb. I couldn’t stop thinking about that little boy, or how fiercely hot the flames had been. I looked down at my own undamaged hands. I felt woozy and sick.

  Annalise called my name again. I turned away, ran to the edge of the lot, and puked into the bushes.

  When that was over, I had tears in my eyes from the strain of it. They were the only tears that little boy was ever going to get. I tried to spit the acid taste out of my mouth, but it wouldn’t go away.

  I wiped my eyes dry. My hands were shaking and my stomach was in knots. That kid had no one to mourn for him except me, and I didn’t have that much longer in this world, either. Something had to be done for him. I didn’t know what it was, but as I wiped at my eyes again, I knew there had to be something.

  I heard footsteps behind me. “Don’t get maudlin,” Annalise said.

  I told her what she could do with herself.

  “Enough with this weepy Girl Scout routine. Drink this.” She shoved a water bottle into my hands.

  I rinsed my mouth and spat. As long as I did what she told me to do, she wasn’t allowed to kill me. I did it again. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me,” she said. “I just didn’t want you to stink up the van with your puke breath.”

  We walked toward the van. I wondered how many dead kids Annalise had seen. Maybe the number was so high they barely registered anymore.

  I climbed behind the wheel and buckled in. Annalise never wore her seat belt. She had other, less mundane protections.

  “When the boy burned, he turned into something,” I said. “It was, like, gray maggots or something, and they started burrowing into the ground. What were they?”

  “Start the van.”

  “Why weren’t my hands damaged by the flames? I don’t have tattoos over my fingers. Why wasn’t I hurt like Douglas?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “What was that wave I felt? I know you felt it, too. It was like something pushed against my mind.” The words coming out of my mouth sounded ridiculous, but Annalise had just seen me crying like a baby. It’s not like I had any pride left. “And I felt this twinge on my chest—”

  “Start the van,” she interrupted.

  I did. Once we hit the road, Annalise took a cell phone from the glove compartment. She hit speed dial. After a few seconds, she said: “It’s Annalise.” She told the person at the other end of the line Douglas’s name, address, and license number. “Check him out,” she said. “And I’m still waiting for a current report.” She snapped the phone shut without waiting for a response.

  At least I wasn’t the only one she was rude to.

  I focused on the road. The long, slow descent into an overcast northwest night was well under way. I turned on the headlights just in time to light up a sign that said HAMMER BAY 22 MILES. This time, Annalise didn’t protest. Aside from the rumble of the van, it was quiet. Suddenly, I didn’t like the quiet.

  “Who did you call?” She didn’t answer. “Your mom?”

  She shot a deadly look at me. Oops. Sore spot.

  “Why didn’t you kill Douglas?” I asked. “Isn’t that our job? To kill people who have magic?”

  Her response was irritated and defensive. “The Bentons didn’t have magic. Were they carrying a spell book? Had they cast a spell on themselves? Were they hiding a predator?”

  “Guess not.”

  “Someone cast a spell on them. That’s who we want. Those people were no threat. They’re victims.”

  I didn’t say, That’s what I thought, too. I didn’t think the word meant the same thing to her as it did to me.

  We were silent for a couple of minutes. I kept seeing the boy’s face as the flames erupted around it. I kept hearing him say it didn’t hurt. I needed to keep talking, or I was going to start weeping again.

  “Why are we going to Hammer Bay?” I asked. “Not for Douglas. What’s going on there?” She didn’t answer again. “Come on,” I persisted. “We’re supposed to be doing this job and I don’t know anything about it. Tell me what’s going on. Or don’t you know? Flames that don’t hurt. Boys that turn into maggots. People who forget their dead kids. Something that pushed against our minds.” She was silent. “Aren’t you going to explain any of this?”

  “No reason to.”

  “Why not?”
<
br />   “Because you’ll be dead very, very soon.”

  We drove the rest of the way in silence.

  We passed over the crest of a hill, and the Pacific Ocean suddenly appeared below us. Then I saw the town of Hammer Bay. We drove down the hill, straight toward the heart of it.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  HARRY CONNOLLY spent two years writing his first novel, Child of Fire. He has held a variety of jobs in the past, from customer service to landscaping to stay-at-home dad. He lives in Seattle.

  Slaying the Dragon

  I lifted the shotgun to my shoulder and trotted toward Smoky, who was still sniffing the pieces of shattered door glass. Smoke rose from his nostrils with each exhalation.

  I am so about to get myself barbecued, I thought. I wish Cooper were here; he’d know exactly what to do.

  Tears welled up in my eyes. Where was he? Was he okay? If he’d been sucked into that black pit of nightmares I’d seen … dammit, I should have insisted we wait another day to summon the rain. We never should have gone out that night.

  I could have been curled up on the couch with Cooper, watching an old movie with little terrier-sized Smoky on his lap and my ferret on my lap, eating popcorn and laughing and smiling and kissing instead of being wet and scared and alone and not knowing what the hell I was doing in this stinking parking garage.

  I was about a dozen yards from Smoky. Close enough for a clean, strong hit with the shotgun, although I didn’t want to do that. In the yellow lights of the garage, he was truly frightening: part dog, part Asian dragon, part centipede, all wrong. Green slime caked the edges of his lips—blood, poison, or both? His eyes, I realized, were faceted like an insect’s. Would he recognize me through his new eyes, or would I look as monstrous to him as he did to me?

  I set the shotgun muzzle down and leaned the stock against my damp leg so it would be close at hand. While Smoky had never been able to speak to anyone but Cooper, I hoped to get some kind of friendly response, and I figured pointing a firearm at him wasn’t the best tactic.

  I whistled at him. “Smoky! Smoky, whatcha looking at there, buddy?”

  His head jerked up from the smashed glass, and he stared at me. His lips drew back from his dagger-like teeth in a snarl. Green poison dripped from the tips. A growl like an anvil dragging across concrete rolled out of his throat.

  Not the response I’d been hoping for.

  “Smoky, don’t be like that. It’s me, Jessie. You know me, I’m your friend. I fed you just this morning. Cooper’s missing, and I need your help if we’re gonna get him back.”

  I slowly reached into my pocket, hoping I had a rubber band or hair tie in there, but could only find a loose thread from the stitching. It would have to do. I broke it off and began to chant old words for “bind.”

  At the first weak touch of my magic, Smoky lunged at me, fast as a striking cobra.

  No time to finish. I snatched up the shotgun, swung the muzzle up toward Smoky, and squeezed the trigger. It blasted into his open mouth.

  Smoky roared and jerked back, shaking his head like a dog with a wasp-stung nose. I pumped the gun, aimed for his eye, and fired again.

  Smoky bucked, and I didn’t see his tail flailing toward me until it was too late. The tail slammed into my left shoulder, knocking me off my feet and the shotgun out of my hands.

  I tumbled across the concrete and landed back-first against the cinder-block wall, knocking my head painfully. I lay there, dazed, expecting to feel Smoky’s hot breath on my skin as his jaws clamped down on my prone body—

  —but instead I heard glass breaking. I turned my head in time to see Smoky’s tail disappearing through what was left of the doors to the Riffe Center. The shotgun lay ten yards away from me.

  “Oh great,” I moaned, awkwardly sitting up. I’d banged up my knees and elbows and hands pretty well during my tumble. “This is going well.”

  At least you’re not barbecue, I reminded myself. Or giblet surprise.

  I scratched an itch on my left forearm, and my hand came away sticky with blood. Smoky’s tail had torn my T-shirt and opened a three-inch gash in my shoulder. I couldn’t see anything but blood in the wound.

  I tried to raise my left arm and was answered with a bright blue spike of pain from the muscles and joint. It even hurt to make a fist. I had to take care of the arm before I could think about tracking down Smoky.

  Bracing myself against the wall with my good arm, I climbed to my feet. There was wriggling movement on the floor near the broken glass. I retrieved the shotgun and slowly approached it.

  Smoky’s green blood had spattered on the floor, and a strange moss was growing from it. As I watched, the moss sprouted thorny tendrils that wiggled out across the concrete like earthworms seeking dirt. Or tentacles seeking meat.

  I stepped back out of tendril reach. You don’t know what that is; don’t even think about touching it, I thought. This ain’t biology class; don’t experiment.

  But if a few drops of blood produced this … he was bound to bleed a lot more if I had to kill him. Would the reality warp end with him, or would the moss survive him and sustain it?

  I jogged through the broken doors and entered the basement floor of the Riffe Tower. Moss was spreading across the pinkish marble stairs leading to the foyer. I hoped he wouldn’t go too far before I could catch up.

  To my right was the locked gate to a little cafeteria; I’d eaten there after I’d been to an art exhibit on the main floor. It wasn’t exactly gourmet dining, but I knew the place would have what I needed.

  It took me a couple of minutes of searching for words for “rust” to rot the steel Master Lock enough that I could bash it open with the butt of the shotgun. I heaved the gate out of the way. The kitchen was locked, too, but I was getting better at finding good words for “corrosion.” The doorknob’s comparatively flimsy lock gave after a minute of chanting.

  The kitchen was lit in the red glow from the EXIT signs. I set my shotgun down by the door. A white steel medical kit was bolted to the back wall between the grill and one of the prep tables; I opened it and found a roll of gauze and an Ace bandage.

  “Mustard, mustard, where are you, mustard …?” There it was, right below the prep tables. I pulled the huge plastic jar off its shelf and set it on the steel tabletop.

  I heard a roar and frightened shouts upstairs.

  Three firecracker pops of a pistol. Then a loud thumping and shattering glass. The scream of a man in pain.

  Girl, you better hurry, I thought.

  My arm ached, and my palm had gone numb. Maybe Smoky had put a little something special into my wound. Or maybe his cut had damaged a nerve.

  Cooper had shown me how to make a healing poultice out of mustard and onions from our weenie roast fixings when we’d gone swimming at Buckeye Lake and I cut my foot open on a broken bottle. But mustard and onions weren’t much use for poison. Would ginger work? Garlic? My memory pinged: basil. People once used basil in poultices to draw out venom. Hindus? Medieval Europeans? My memory failed. No matter.

  I found all the herbs I needed in a cabinet; the powdered garlic was relatively fresh, but the dried basil was sad and stale. I dumped what was left of the tin onto a cutting board, mixed in an equal portion of chopped onions from the refrigerator, a few pinches of dried garlic, and enough mustard to make a paste. I kneaded the mixture as I spoke the ancient words for “health” and “healing,” then pulled up the remains of my T-shirt sleeve and pressed a handful of the paste against the angry wound.

  Pain jagged from the wound down my arm and into my chest. I managed to keep from screaming, kept up my chant as I tried to think cool thoughts, healing thoughts. I visualized the pain and poison leaving my body and my flesh closing beneath my fingers.

  It was done. I pulled my hand away. The wound had knitted into a red seam. It looked like it might not even scar. As a precaution against the wound being pulled open, I wrapped my shoulder in gauze and then the Ace bandage, then flexed my arm. I felt a twin
ge when I rotated the arm backward, but all things considered the joint felt pretty solid.

  There was a phone bolted to the wall near the door; would I be able to get through to anybody on a landline? I lifted the receiver and put it to my ear. Instead of a dial tone, I heard a hollow, faint roar.

  I jiggled the cradle. “Hello?”

  “I need to get warm.” My aunt’s voice was thin, barely more than a whisper. “It’s so cold in here. Let me warm up inside you. I can slip in through your ear and you’ll hardly know I’m there at all—”

  Shit.

  I slammed the receiver back in its cradle, grabbed the shotgun, and headed back to the stairway.

  Then stopped.

  The marble steps were completely covered in waving, curling vines and meat-purple fern-like fronds. The vines shuddered and stretched out toward me, yearning for my heat or blood or both.

  I backed off and ran down the corridor to the other set of stairs that led up to the first floor. I jogged up the steps and peeked out around the corner.

  The entire floor between the basement stairway and the entrance to the art gallery was covered in a jungle of undulating fronds. A viney lump twitched in the middle of the floor. The vines shifted, and I saw a section of white uniform shirt. A walkie-talkie crackled.

  I forced my gaze from the dying security guard and realized that half a dozen round pods were growing near his body. They looked like football-sized red grapes. As I stared at the translucent pods, I realized I was seeing tiny embryos like curled eels growing inside. Thick, thorny umbilical vines pulsed between the guard’s body and the pods.

  Oh hell. How fast were Smoky’s pups growing? I raised my shotgun and took aim … then lowered it. Jesus. I didn’t have enough ammo if every drop of his blood was going to turn into a hungry, baby-spawning briar patch.

  On the bright side, I wouldn’t have to worry about trying to contact anyone if this got much worse. The entire downtown would look like an inferno of bad magic to anyone even remotely sensitive.

  Surely the governing circle knew what was going on by now, and would do something to help. They are a group of seven powerful witches and wizards who act as the local government for the Talents in Columbus and a few counties beyond. They arbitrate disputes, set policies, and enforce the laws set forth by the Virtii, ancient air spirits who had been tasked by the powers that be with overseeing Talented humankind.