33

THE DARKNESS WITHIN US

Dru watched with a fascinated kind of horror as the apparition shimmered and solidified, becoming more detailed in much the same way the world came into focus every time she put on her glasses. The looming, bent figure with protruding white eyes and a halo of floating silver hair slowly changed, becoming more recognizably human.

Although Dru could still see right through his ghostly, luminescent form, he became a person at last. He was tall, dressed in an open-collared shirt and jacket. A mane of long white hair fell to his shoulders, flowing in an invisible breeze. Widely spaced, piercing eyes glared down at her from underneath bushy eyebrows. His long, gaunt face became even more drawn as he looked down his hooked nose at her. Slowly, without moving his feet, he drifted closer.

With a shock of recognition, Dru suddenly realized who he was. She had seen him only in grainy black-and-white photos from the late 1960s, standing outside his desert mansion with his followers, all of them making arcane symbols with their hands. He was the leader of the Harbingers. The most dangerous sorcerer of the twentieth century. He looked much older than he did in his photos. But it was clearly him.

His name had been on the back of the photo she had found in the desert, written in faded ballpoint pen.

“Severin,” she breathed.

His chin lifted regally. He looked mildly impressed.

“Lucretia told me there was another crystal sorceress.” Severin’s unearthly voice reverberated through the air, coming from every direction at once. It shook in the hollow of Dru’s chest and slithered from every crevice, only slowly dying away into a million little echoes.

“Really? And how is Lucretia these days?” she said, as if they were discussing an old mutual acquaintance, not an evil sorceress who had tried to destroy the world with a colossal earthquake.

Severin flicked a dismissive hand. “She’s gone now.”

“What does that mean, exactly? Is she dead? Missing? Exiled?” Dru shuffled her feet, inching closer to the edge of the crater, though it was still distressingly far away. “Did you guys kick her out of the clubhouse and take away her Harbingers membership card?”

Severin’s expression was unreadable. “She was always the outsider. Always kept one foot in the mortal world. She was never truly one of us, in her heart. Such a pity, to see her driven by so much rage, and not by righteousness. She didn’t have the vision to create the future. Or the dedication to wait for it.”

“Gee, that’s too bad.” Dru risked another half-step closer to the crater. There was a chance she could hurl the scroll down into its depths from here, but an even greater chance that Severin would simply fly over and pluck it out of the air. She had to get close enough that she didn’t give him that chance. “Of course, there’s another explanation for why you guys never quite got along.”

Severin said nothing, as if waiting for her to go on.

She inched a little bit closer to the pit. “Have you considered that maybe she knew moving to the Shining City was a colossally bad idea? You guys wanted it to be your ultimate sorcerer digs, your big, sparkly fortress of solitude. But no living human being can permanently relocate to the netherworld. Over time, it sucks the life essence out of you. It withers you up until you lose your body and become dispossessed. As I assume you’ve figured out by now.”

“ Now we are free of mortal concerns.”

Another step closer to the crater. “Yeah, well, how’s that working out for you? So far, you yourself have not broken a single seal on this scroll. Other people did all the work. Because you guys did this whole doomsday thing all wrong.”

Severin floated back half a pace, straightening up haughtily. “Your ignorance is dangerous, child. You don’t understand. We will create a new world.” “Oh, really? Think so? Tell me if this sounds familiar.” Dru pushed her glasses back up her nose and deliberately stepped closer to the wraith, which also brought her closer to the crater’s edge. “After you guys found the apocalypse scroll, you summoned up four speed demons as offerings for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. And then you just sat around in your shiny metropolis waiting for the world to end. But it didn’t. For fifty years, nothing happened. Do you know why?”

Severin’s ghostly fists bunched at his sides, but he said nothing.

Dru’s throat went dry. She didn’t know how far she could provoke him before he would lash out at her. When he did, she would have absolutely nothing to defend herself with. She just had to make it to the edge of the crater before that happened. And the best way to do that was to keep him off balance. The moment he started to believe he was running the show again, she was as good as dead.

She just had to get the scroll into the crater. Put it back where it belonged. Undo the damage that had started with Decimus, two thousand years before. So simple, and yet so impossible.

She swallowed and took another step. “Why did nothing happen? Because you left those speed demons locked up in your desert mansion. They couldn’t find their Horsemen.” At that, Dru thought of Greyson and all of the pain he’d been through. He’d never done anything wrong, never asked to be part of this. Then again, neither had she. But now, she had to finish this. “It wasn’t until Hellbringer and the others finally got loose that things started to happen again. So really, your great, big master plan only really got rolling because some bored bureaucrat in the government of New Mexico finally got around to auctioning off all of your junk to the public. You know what’s actually kind of funny about that?”

Dru’s knees shook as she took another step. She was so close now, almost close enough to throw the scroll, but not quite.

She struggled to keep her voice level and project a confidence she didn’t have. “The funny thing is, back when you guys were alive, and doing all those protests in the 1960s, you kept saying the government was going to destroy the world. And guess what?” She took another step. “You were right. Accidentally. But that still counts.”

Severin puffed up with rage, which was so terrifying that Dru had to avert her gaze. “You foolish girl.”

“You know we don’t actually use the word ‘girl’ like that anymore, right?” She moved to take one last step, when Severin barked out a harsh command that stopped her cold.

“STOP!” His voice crashed all around her, like a force of nature, a voice so powerful and enraged it could almost crack through solid rock.

She froze.

His hair fluttered in an invisible breeze as he drifted to within an arm’s reach of her. “The only reason you still exist is because of my admiration for you.”

That was unexpected. Carefully, Dru leaned back and blinked up at him, wondering what he meant.

“You have potential far beyond anything Lucretia ever dreamed. Her anger left her broken. But you can be so much more. If you are not afraid to set yourself free.”

“Oh.” She had to swallow to keep her voice from squeaking, acutely aware of the fact that he could kill her with just a touch. “What’s there to be afraid of?”

“Hmm. I know you condemn me. Because you focus only on the destruction ahead, and you can’t see beyond that. But you must understand, the old world is a prison. Like it or not, there is only one way to free yourself for the new world.”

She stared up into his ghostly face, studying the regal features that rippled and wavered as if they were underwater. His countenance hinted at madness, but also an incredible intelligence. She wondered how much of that was pure, cold calculation, and how much of a capacity he still had to reason and think.

“You know, who doesn’t want a better world? Right? But what’s wrong with making it the old-fashioned way? Through hard work. Kindness. Good deeds. An open mind. You don’t have to throw it all out and destroy the world to make a better one.”

“Your way is just a dream. It doesn’t work. It has never worked.”

“Or.” She held up one finger. “Or, maybe it just requires trying harder. Maybe, you’ve been out of your own body for too long. If you could just remember what it’s like to be human, to have all of those hopes and dreams, and the willpower to create a brighter future—”

“Ha!” He let out a low, slow chuckle that reverberated around the rocks circling the crater and made Dru’s skin crawl. “It is you who can’t remember what it’s like to be a normal person. Without any magical powers. Hopeless. Insignificant. Useless. You’ve tasted the wine of sorcery, and you’ve become so drunk with your own power that you fail to seize the opportunity to do something truly great. Something no one has ever done before. You can help make a new world. You can make a world the way it should be.”

Dru utterly disagreed with the idea of trying to create a new world, but his comment about magical powers struck a nerve. Sometimes, she did wonder whether she had lost touch with the normal world.

As if he could see that sliver of doubt in her, Severin pounded on it until it felt like it would crack her open. “You’re eager to say that you can make the world a better place. But can you? We tried that. Even us, the greatest sorcerers in the world, couldn’t make a lasting difference. We couldn’t put an end to war. Poverty. Nuclear proliferation. Deforestation. Pollution. Can you?” His voice echoed to silence before he spoke again, and this time it came out softer, almost human. “Look at your world today. Half a century later, what has changed?”

She stared out across the vast emptiness of the dark crater. She was close enough that she could hurl the scroll in from here. But the moment she drew her arm back, Severin would doubtless grab the scroll from her.

Unless.

Unless instead of throwing it, she carried it down into the crater herself. Just a few swift strides, and she could leap out over the edge.

She could see it in her mind’s eye: her feet pounding across the rocks, reaching the edge, and pushing off. It would be so unthinkable, and yet so easy. And when she finally hit the bottom, bringing the scroll home, the world would be safe.

“Answer me.” Severin’s voice boomed out. “What has changed?”

She blinked back stinging tears, trying to summon up the strength she needed.

“I’ll tell you. Nothing has changed. It’s all the same.” He sounded disgusted. “The old world is a rotting corpse, holding back the spirit of possibility. If you truly want a better world, you need to free it. Just as your body is a prison for your soul. Do you know why I chose to become dispossessed? Why we all did?”

That threw Dru. She thought they had become wraiths by accident. “Chose?”

“To be free,” he whispered. “To be free.”

Dru swallowed. The very idea of choosing to become a wraith was horrible beyond words.

“Give up the prison of your flesh. Here, now. Join me and create a new world of limitless possibilities.”

It took all of Dru’s willpower to quell the shaking inside her. But when she could trust herself to speak, she squared her shoulders and turned to face him. “We can never give up on the world. Because if we give up, then we all end up like you. Without anything left. Without our humanity. Without hope.” She wondered if he could see what she was about to do. “I choose hope.”

A strange look crossed his ghostly face, and she only realized too late what it was. Fear.

She turned to begin her run for the crater, and at that moment the rest of the wraiths flew up over the rocks on all sides. She glanced left and right, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, but there was nowhere to go. She was surrounded.

She tried to dodge around Severin, but he reached out one ghostly arm and seized her by the throat with icy fingers.