Page 11 of Morning's Light

CHAPTER 3

Ten degrees. It felt like five-below with the wind chill—a typical frigid Chicago winter. Spring bobbed around the corner but couldn’t come fast enough. Especially not when her heating bill skyrocketed and the apartment she rented didn’t have in-floor heating.

Aisanna woke in the wee hours of the morning freezing cold with a crick in her neck and throbbing in her bones. Her mouth tasted stale, like she’d munched on an entire box worth of cardboard. She ran her tongue along fuzzy teeth. It took some time to realize where she was and wonder at her own inability to make it down the hall to her bedroom.

Had she gotten such a scare she couldn’t manage the ten extra feet? Or was it laziness? Probably the latter.

She rose with a groan, every inch of her cold and numb. A tingle spread through her limbs when blood began to circulate. She eased down the hallway and her body protested each step of the way.

She drifted down to the pillowtop mattress. Turning over, she noted the curtains were open. Her fingertips crept across the bed until it became too much effort to reach any further. Yeah, they would have to stay open. Icy light from the moon bleached the clouds bone-white and played over the stained carpet.

It was a reminder of her numbered days. She flexed her fingers, and her ever-present magic sent heat spiraling upward from her core. A magic she’d almost lost for good, thanks to a psychopath with a death wish. Sadly, the late and never-truly-great Herodotos, the man who’d tried to curse her and her family, had had a point. The eclipse was coming and with it, a thinning of the veil separating their world from the world of ancient magicks. The place where witches and wizards drew their powers.

A lunar eclipse during the vernal equinox equaled trouble for anyone with the genetic markers to use magic. Worse for those who didn’t and felt the effects. The diminishing wall between worlds gave rogue magic a chance to leak through onto their plane of existence. And right along with it came something Aisanna and her sisters called Darkness, who seemed hell-bent on letting chaos reign supreme.

It wasn’t the best bedtime story.

She shifted her hand to catch the light, the unfeeling silver ray stealing the heat from her body. Instead of focusing on the sinking feeling in her gut, Aisanna rearranged her pillow, rubbed at her temples and the ache there. One hand drew the thin blanket closer to keep away the chill in the air. The shadows looked too black. Too corporeal. Maybe she was still dreaming, sleepwalking to her bed in an unconscious desire for comfort.

Come to me.

The voice echoed in her head, the voice of imaginings and nightmares. Aisanna sat straight up, every hair shot to attention. “Who’s there?” she called out in a high and tinny voice.

Something brushed against her cheek, the insubstantial breath of a phantom. A spirit who trailed beside her and sought to damn her soul. The same one who’d targeted her sister weeks before.

The room stilled. Not even the curtains moved by the forced heat coming through the registers. The air became heavy and Aisanna knew something waited for her.

She was afraid to speak again. She dragged her blanket toward her chin like a shield and watched her breath cloud in front of her.

You’re mine.

At the sound of the second statement, real and tangible, she began to scream, scream until the noise blocked out her fear. She was not Astix. Fear did not make her stronger. Fear made her shrink into herself until she became a statue. Unable to perform under pressure.

Using the sound for cover, Aisanna scrambled to her feet.

As fast as she could manage, she grabbed her coat and keys and, still screaming, bolted for the door. Her neighbors would surely file complaints about the noise but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about the time of night or if every person in the building heard her; she continued her caterwauling until she reached the sidewalk. Only then did she remember that Elon had driven her home and her own car was still parked beside the shop.

Dammit!

No way was she going inside again. Not with voices speaking to her in a tone she painfully remembered, had heard in her dreams for the better part of three weeks after escaping capture. She was not a shrinking flower to shy away from a powerful enemy. At least, she didn’t want to be. But the thought of being alone with a beast like the one her sister had faced alone brought a return of her shaking.

She shrieked her way down the street until there was a safe distance between her and the building. Only then did she halt her forward progress, powerwalking under the line of street lights.

Okay, think, she admonished. You have no car, no cell phone, no way to go anywhere if you wanted to. What now?

Aisanna dug deep into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a ball of lint, a cut stem from a rose, and roughly sixty-seven cents in mixed coins. It wasn’t enough for a cab, let alone a payphone. Turning down the sidewalk, it was only then she realized she’d forgotten shoes.

Double dammit.

The frosted concrete stung the bare soles of her feet with each step she took, deepening her awareness of the predicament. Turning the corner, she peered down the block and tried to make out any signs of life. A small sound to her left had Aisanna whipping around with her hands held aloft, ready to defend.

Rats scurried among the garbage cans and ignored her presence in their quest for food. Streetlamps flickered. Aisanna shook, anxious, and fingers and toes turned blue in the biting winter weather.

Despite the pain, she ran, feet slapping the sidewalk. Fighting to outrun her demons. An all-night convenience store sat several blocks over, and even with the distance she was determined to make it. Put one foot in front of the other and all will be well. She repeated the refrain. Said it twice more for impact.

It took longer than she wanted it to, with several stops to press her body against the side of a building and try to fill her lungs, until she finally burst through the door amidst the tune of a jaunty mechanical greeting. The clerk behind the counter took one look at her and reached a hand down automatically for the weapon holstered there.

“I need to use your phone!” Her breath came in gasps and she held her side against the stitches there. “Please.”

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