Page 102 of Despair
Daisy shouted at Raven, “I need more of that liquid!”
“Holy water. This is the last of it.”
She tossed a small vial to Daisy who smashed the glass bottle on the invisible barrier. Holy water ruptured the block. Daisy forced her gift into the weak points and then expanded it. Feeling the gap widen, she added everything she could. She pushed in electricity from Evan, magnetism from Griffin, fire from Tony until burning embers surrounded the perimeter of the opening she created. It burned wider, bringing with it the smell of ozone and the foul stench from within. Whether the stink came from the macabre ritualistic pieces, the sewer, or the holes in the ground, she wasn’t sure.
But she was gaining access. With the weakening barrier, the mind-numbing, gut curdling sense of despair worsened. More came from the dark place the creatures had come from. They prowled around the dark hole, sniffing the shadows and pawing at it. There were more of its kind behind the shadows, Daisy could sense it. All it took was for them to find a way to pull their friends through and then they’d be overrun with the monsters.
Follow my instincts.
That’s what everyone kept telling Daisy.
Just let go,Axel had once told her.
Stop thinking about it. Just do it.
So she became what monster’s ran from. She summoned the worst she’d ever felt, called on Sloan’s gift and projected despair, fear, horror, and helplessness. She speared it through the gap in the barrier, toward Julius, toward his family, toward the creatures. She flung it through until the two women screamed in terror and the twisted creatures cowered. Julius’s family ran—right out of the arcane circles.
“No!” Julius bellowed, chasing them. “We’re not ready—”
But the moment their feet stepped outside of the circle, the invisible barrier holding Daisy back broke, and with it collapsed whatever force held Julius’s wife’s and daughter’s corporeal forms together. They became ghostlike. Their screams became distant. The candles inside the ritual circles winked out. Then, like falling grains of sand, the last of their light spilled onto the ground in a cascade and Julius’s original family was no more.
Daisy sensed nothing from them, and in horror realized that they hadn’t returned to their happy place. Their existence was over. Daisy had interrupted his ritual before it had a chance to completely bring them back… or they needed more time to fully solidify.
Julius wailed and fell to his knees, desperately trying to gather the sand left over from their forms but it spilled through his fingers.
Daisy wanted to gloat, to laugh at him and say, “After all that, your greed has left you with nothing. You ruined your family’s happiness by bringing them here.”
But despair from the pit of the dark hole thickened. It pulsed. Unlike the light side, where Daisy sensed joy and happiness, things tried to crawl through from the darkness.
“Now,” Raven cried and limped to pick up Daisy’s katana to spear at the shadow creatures, still cowering and pawing at the shadow hole. “Help me get them back where they belong. They’re fully formed so they have to go back. Don’t let more out.”
“Hold it closed,” Daisy murmured, her eyes wide as she stared at the pulsing shadow. That’s what Raven had told Daisy to do when she’d first arrived. Raven’s eyes had gone white. It had been a vision, just like Mary’s.
If this is what Mary faced when she had visions, then Daisy understood why she made the choice she did to leave Daisy behind that fateful day when she was a child. Sometimes risks had to be made for the good of everyone. For loved ones.
Daisy stepped toward the holes, placed herself between the two and reached into the pit of despair. The instant she touched shadow, she felt it crawl up her arms like spiders. But she was ready for it. She opened herself up. She let the shadows see she was despair. She was like them. Once they recognized her, the gate’s defenses eased enough to let her awareness in. She latched onto the metaphysical opening with her mind, and like a handle on a door, she mentally grasped it and held against the pull of beings on the other side.
They didn’t like that. And the black twisted creatures also didn’t like that. Guttural snarls filled the air. Mounting pressure, moans and groans, cries and shrieks, pulsed against her, forcing her to hold more until tears burned her eyes and she screamed against the strain.
“I’m holding it! Now how do we close it?”
“Balance,” Raven said as she booted one of the creatures. It fell writhing and howling into the dark hole, disappearing into the shadow and smoke. “Each side needs their souls returned.”
The last twisted creature launched at Raven, dripping fangs snapping.
“Shit,” Raven blurted, dodging. She hit a tunnel wall, jarring her shoulder.
She was completely vulnerable, soft and mortal, unlike Daisy.
“Get out,” Daisy shouted. “Leave this to me.”
“You can’t do it on your own.” Brave words from Raven weren’t reflected on her face as she flattened herself against the wall as the monster prowled closer.
A dagger whizzed past Daisy’s cheek from somewhere behind in the lab. It embedded in the shadowed shoulder of the creature. The hilt stuck, wobbled. Not all shadow after all. Fully formed, Raven had said. It turned and faced Daisy, thinking she’d thrown the dagger. Another dagger flew. And another.
No, not dagger. Shuriken. A throwing star.
Daisy glanced over her shoulder to the lab. Standing there in the middle of the hole in the wall, with her husband at her back, was Mary. Wind from the gates blew her long braid. In her hands, she had more shuriken loaded and ready to loose.