Chapter 31
Nela stared into the flames. They’d destroyed most of the wood and left only ashes behind. She wondered what the Brotherhood had done to her parents’ bodies. Had they burnt them and buried their ashes somewhere she’d never know? She’d wanted to visit the Melaten cemetery to see if new graves had been added to the part where convicted witches were buried anonymously, but Darko had refused to let her leave his apartment. He’d gone instead but returned very quickly and told her that the cemetery was untouched. Her parents hadn’t wanted to be cremated, but witches who were in the hands of the Brotherhood were always subjected to fire to burn the evil out of them.
Nela shuddered. Sometimes it seemed as if she was never going to be warm again. Darko was constantly putting more logs into the stove and she could tell that it was too warm for him. He was running around in only a thin t-shirt and still sweating. Not surprising considering it was June and 70°F outside.
The neighbors probably thought they’d lost their mind, heating in the middle of summer. Slowly she walked up to the window. The sun was shining and people were mingling on the streets in colorful summer clothes, eating ice cream and enjoying themselves.
Maybe losing her parents had turned her into a real necromancer. Maybe that was why she felt so dead.
Darko came out of the bathroom, his hair still wet and not wearing a shirt. She’d noticed that he hurried with his showers and with pretty much everything that meant they weren’t together. He kept a constant eye on her like a mother-hen protecting her chicks. He was worried that she’d kill herself. It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought about it in the first couple of days after her parents had died, but now six days had gone by and she’d decided that it would be a too easy way out for her. She deserved to suffer after she’d failed to save them.
Darko was watching her with that look again, with blatant relief upon seeing that she hadn’t sliced open her wrists. Droplets of water trailed down his face and landed on his chest, but he didn’t take his eyes off her. There was a look in them that she couldn’t place. Somehow she knew he could peel away the layers of her skin and see into the abyss that had been her heart once. If someone knew what it meant to lose and to suffer, then it was Darko. A single droplet trailed over the cross burnt into the skin over his breastbone.
She touched the rough skin. It was the size of her palm and still red. “Why did you never heal it?” He probably meant for it to be a reminder of the day his parents died.
He cupped her hands. “Would you?”
She shook her head. She almost wished she had something similar, something visible to show for the loss she’d suffered. “I feel like I’m dead.”
His grip tightened. “But you aren’t.”
“Sometimes I wish I were,” she whispered. “What’s the use of living if you don’t feel alive?”
She expected him to say ‘It’ll pass’ like he’d done shortly afterward, but he didn’t. Instead he stared intently out of the window. “There’s a place I want to show you. I used to go there after my sister died.”
“Okay,” she said. He pulled a black shirt over his head and slipped into black sneakers. When she’d first met him, she hadn’t understood his need to dress in black all the time. He stuffed a backpack with a blanket, water bottles, apples and pre-made sandwiches. “Ready?” he asked with the hint of a smile.
She grabbed her jacket, took his hand and let him pull her against him. She would have to ask him about traveling by shadow later. She was certain that she could have done it by herself after everything.
They appeared at the edge of a forest that bordered on a small lake. Across from them ragged rocks rose up like crooked teeth. Nela had seen photos of them before. “The Extern Stones,” Darko said as he led her around the lake. The stones were reflected in the water and flickered whenever a fish broke the surface to snatch up a water strider. “Witches used to celebrate Summer Solstice here.”
“It’s tomorrow, June 21st, right?” Nela said, her eyes traveling up the stones that were thirty times her height.
“Yeah.”
“Why is nobody here?”
“Because it’s a place where witches used to celebrate. The people from the surrounding villages fear the powers of this place and witches shun it because of how it might make them look in the eyes of the Brotherhood.”
“They’re hunting us anyway,” Nela said with a shrug. Darko led her toward a smaller stone, still twenty times her height, which was connected to the highest stone by an arched bridge.
A staircase was chiseled into the stone. “It’s called Stair Rock,” Darko explained as they ascended the steps that hugged the rock. When they reached the top, the iron bridge appeared in front of them. They crossed it toward what Darko called the Tower Rock. An open chamber had been pounded into the rock, with an arched altar on one side. In its center was a stone basin and above it a round hole that let the sun through. Markings had been scratched into and painted onto the stone all over the altar.
“Only around summer solstice sun rays fall through the opening,” Darko said with a nod toward the hole over the basin. Nela led her gaze sweep over the green landscape and surrounding rocks. Up here she could almost believe she and Darko were the only people left in this world. Her pulse pounded in her veins from the ascend and she felt almost alive, as if her body could see past the emptiness inside if she just exerted it enough.
Darko spread the blanket out on the ground and set their food out. Nela sank down beside him. She accepted the sandwich he handed her and ate it in small bites, taking gulps of water in between to wash it down. Despite the sunshine, Nela felt the familiar cold creep back into her, the familiar hollowness. She pushed her hands into her pockets to keep them warm when her fingers brushed against glass. She glanced at Darko who watched her with sad eyes. Misery was a part of them both, and step by step it was swallowing them up. She removed the vial Mikael had given her and drowned it in one gulp before she crawled over to Darko and into his lap.
“Nela?” Confusion rang in his tone but she silenced him with her lips. She pressed herself against him, savoring the heat of his mouth, the thrumming of his pulse under her fingertips when she trailed them over his throat. Her hands found their way under his shirt, exploring his warm skin, the soft trail of hair under his bellybutton. He felt alive and warm, everything she was not, everything she yearned for. He’d been with her in her darkest hours. Somehow she was certain he’d be with her till the bitter end.
She wanted him. Wanted him to make her feel alive. To make her forget.
He held back, his hands lightly resting on her lower back, barely there. He pulled away a few inches, enough for him to speak. “Nela, what—”
She interrupted him. “I want you.”
‘I need you’ was what she didn’t say.
His brows wrinkled. “Are you—”
Her mouth collided with his, almost painfully. He needed to stop talking. She didn’t want to think about this, about anything. She wanted to be, right this second. “I am.”
“But—”
“Darko.” She didn’t bother hiding her despair. And then his lips were back on hers, no longer hesitant, as if he’d finally shed whatever doubt had clung to him. Her lips felt raw and hot from the fierceness of their kiss. She pulled his shirt over his head, kissed his scars and the smooth skin around them. He pushed her to the ground. The stone was hard and cold against her back, but when Darko’s lips found her collarbone and his hands slipped under her shirt she was burning up inside.
There was something desperate in his touch, something reverent, something final. His movements spoke of experience, but she didn’t care. He was hers now. That was all that mattered. When he gazed down at her, his body warm against hers, his lips so close they shared the same breath, she felt alive and she hoped this feeling would last forever.
Chapter 32
Darko stared down at Nela’s sleeping form. She was curled up on her side, still naked. The sun was setti
ng behind the forest. Only a few more hours. He needed to be in his Master’s lab around midnight. He trailed his fingers over the smooth skin over her hipbone, then turned away, unable to look at her in view of what he’d done. How could he have slept with her knowing what he was going to do to her mere hours later?
Fierce self-hatred burned through him. But it was too late. He wrapped the blanket around her and lifted her into his arms. She snuggled into his chest and he wished he could extract his own heart as he’d done with so many of his victims. He closed his eyes against the last rays of golden light and called the shadows upon himself.
He appeared in his bedroom and for a long time he stood with Nela in his arms, relishing in the feel of her warm skin. Part of him, the darkest, ugliest part of him was glad she’d given herself to him, glad that he got to have her before he lost her forever. He hated that part as much as he hated the Brotherhood, maybe even more.
Pressing a kiss against her forehead, he put Nela down on his bed before he left his apartment and headed toward the Melaten cemetery. Silence reigned around him as he thrust the shovel into the soil of his sister’s grave. “I’m sorry, Milena,” he whispered. His parents had taught him that it was a sin to disturb the dead and though he hadn’t cared about sinning in a while, this sacrilege against his own sister reminded him of what they’d wanted him to believe in.
After ten minutes he was covered in sweat but the dark wood of his sister’s coffin lay in the open. He couldn’t lift it out of the hole. Ignoring his shaking legs, he brought the stone hammer down on the wood with full force. He hit it again and again until he’d removed most of the lid. Magic might have sped up the process but he was worried about damaging his sister’s body by accident. He wasn’t exactly in control of his emotions.
His breath gathered in his throat as he stared down at what remained of his sister. She was even smaller than he remembered, still dressed in the blue dress he’d chosen for her. Most of her skin and flesh were gone, and only the sinews, hair and fingernails were still attached to her skeleton.
Darko heaved and emptied what little he had in his stomach beside him. He forced himself to climb down into the grave, his feet in the narrow space between his sister’s legs and the walls of the coffin. He bent down, feeling oddly lightheaded, and pushed his hands under her body. He suppressed a shudder as he straightened and lifted her out of the grave. What was he doing? That question kept echoing in his mind but he’d learned to ignore the voice of reason long ago.
He gingerly put her down on the ground and took a few moments to catch his breath before he grabbed her again and transported her to his Master’s laboratory. As promised the magical barriers were gone and he appeared in the lab itself and not the ante-chamber.
Master Valentine didn’t acknowledge his presence. He’d somehow managed to remove his workbench, bed and stool from the room. Instead there was a massive stone altar in the center. Darko had to look away and put his sister down in a corner of the room.
“It’s time. Bring the necromancer to me.”
***
Nela felt a hand on her cheek and peeled her eyes open. She glanced at Darko’s face, illuminated by the bedside lamp, and then toward the window. It was dark outside. “What’s wrong?” she mumbled, surprised to find herself back in his bed.
The last thing she remembered was that she’d fallen asleep in his arms after they’d slept together for the very first time. The heat she’d felt then was already fading, the unwelcome cold creeping back in, and with it the hollowness. She’d dreamed about her parents, about her father’s last fearful expression before he was shot, about her mother’s hopeless face, about the smell of blood.
Darko was watching her with eyes like black mirrors. “I need your help,” he said hoarsely. He smelled like death and dank soil, and shadows darkened the skin beneath his eyes.
Nela sat up, ignoring the soreness she felt. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “My Master has found a way to bring my sister back, but he needs our help.”
“Our help?”
“During our last meeting I told him about you, and he started reading about necromancers. He’s got a lot of old books and apparently there’s a way to bring my sister back.”
“What about my parents?”
Darko blinked. “Only if they weren’t burnt.”
A heavy weight settled in Nela’s chest. The Brotherhood always burnt witches. A week had passed since they’d died, they’d be long gone. She closed her eyes, fighting tears.
“Will you help me?”
She nodded.
“But it might be dangerous.”
Dangerous? What was there to lose? “I don’t care. I’d do anything to help you, Darko.”
He smiled a stiff, little smile. This was hurting him. Nela wasn’t sure how his Master wanted to bring his sister back after all those years, but she was willing to talk to him. She owed it to Darko after how he’d taken care of her after her parents’ death.
She untangled herself from the blankets before she realized that she was still naked. She quickly grabbed her clothes and put them on. She could feel Darko’s eyes on her the entire time, but the look in them was different from the one she remembered from the Tower Rock. “Okay,” she said finally, tearing him from his stupor. He wrapped his arms around her. He was tense, his grip almost hesitant.
Their surroundings blurred as the shadows gathered around them and then they were ripped from the apartment. The shadows seemed to reach into her body, attracted by her shattered soul. Nela pressed her forehead against Darko’s chest in an attempt to stop her head from spinning. She hadn’t eaten enough today. Her mind was foggy.
Their feet hit stone floor and Nela almost lost her balance from the impact. Immediately a wave of strange thuds filled her ears. Darko leaned down, his lips against her skin. She shivered, remembering his earlier touches and kisses, but his next words made her feel as if she’d been plunged into cold water. “I’m so sorry, but it’s the only way.”
Nela pulled back, staring into his glassy eyes but before she could ask what he meant, a gnarly white hand appeared in front of her face and pressed a tissue over her nose. She sucked in a scared breath and the world darkened around her.
***
Darko held Nela’s limp body in his arms. She’d trusted him. That would be her last mistake. Guilt wrecked him but he kept his face a cold mask. It wouldn’t do if the Master saw him so weak.
“Put her down on the altar,” Master Valentine said, an ugly eagerness in his voice.
Darko carried Nela over to the massive white stone and laid her down. He smoothed her hair until it fanned out around her head like dark silk. The Master pushed him aside with a sound of impatience. “I don’t understand why women don’t wear skirts anymore,” he said. He held a long knife, his Atlame, in his crooked fingers.
“What are you doing?” Darko asked in alarm.
“I need her blood to draw the pentagram,” he said gruffly. “Either you help me or you get out of my way.” He held out the knife for Darko. “Cut her palm. My hands aren’t what they used to be. We only need enough blood for the pentagram, we aren’t going to drain her.” There was mockery in his words.
Darko gripped the knife and his hand was steady as he pressed the blade into Nela’s skin. He made a long but shallow cut and immediately blood seeped out of the wound and dripped into the stone vessel the Master was holding. When it was half full, he pulled it back and shoved it at Darko. “Now paint the pentagram, but be quick.” A wave of resentment washed over Darko but after a glance at his sister’s skeleton, he took the vessel and knelt on the floor.
He couldn’t stand seeing Nela on the altar, ready to be sacrificed, couldn’t stand the thought of hurting her, of losing her, but his sister’s death was his fault. He should have protected her, should have sent her away without him, to a place where people didn’t know she was the sister of a wizard, but he’d been selfish and hadn’t wanted to live w
ithout her. She couldn’t bear living as an outcast, much less among witches. He should have given her the chance at a normal human life, maybe then she could have forgotten about the horrors of their past and lived a happy life.
He brought down the brush and began painting the pentagram on the rough stone floor with Nela’s blood. The people he loved always had to bleed. Love – he’d made peace with the fact that he’d allowed himself to fall in love with Nela. Love wouldn’t save her, just like it hadn’t saved his parents.
***
A sharp pain in her left palm was the first thing Nela noticed when she came to her senses. She’d lost any sense of time. She shifted and something cut into her wrists and ankles, sending another wave of pain through her. She couldn’t move. Her legs and arms were bound and she was lying on a cold, hard surface. Her bonds were made of some kind of metal; she would never be able to break through them. For a moment confusion flooded Nela. Where was she? What had happened? Too many questions shot through her head and the headache that had been a gentle thrumming in the background turned into a bone-splitting throbbing in the forefront of her skull. Her eyelids felt heavy but she forced them open. She was staring at a gray stone ceiling with black burn marks like an intentional pattern all over it. The sound of hundreds of rhythmic thuds filled the room.
Dimly she remembered someone drugging her with a white tissue. The stench of decay hung thickly around her. She twisted her head until she could see her hand, which was tied to the corner of a stone platform. One of her palms had a long cut, which was still dripping blood. With a jolt, Nela realized what it was she was lying on: an altar. Like a sacrificial virgin.
No, not anymore.
Darko had taken care of that. Resentment and a deep sadness pierced through Nela. How could she have been so stupid? How could she have given herself to him? That she’d slept with him wasn’t even what bothered her the most. She’d never understood why some people revered their virginity as if the value of a girl was attached to her virginity. What really got her was that she’d given Darko her trust, that she’d thought he could be the person to lean on after what had happened. The memories that thought brought up were even more painful and Nela pushed them aside. She couldn’t cling to the past, not now. She glanced around and immediately her eyes came to rest on a massive shelf with hundreds of glass jars, and each of them contained a beating heart.