Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One #2)(72)

But they’d come, the soldiers, sweeping in so fast he’d known escape wasn’t possible. He could fight—he had a gun, he had the strange powers in him. But he feared for the boy.

“Abe.” He’d pulled the boy into the kitchen. “Quick now. Into the hiding place.”

“But, Granddad.”

“Remember what we said.” Abraham pulled up the door to the root cellar. “Remember what you promised.”

“I don’t want to—”

“You promised. Go down, and don’t make a sound. No matter what. Don’t come out, no matter what, until I come get you. Or until you know they’re gone. And when you know they’re gone, what do you do?”

“I stay quiet and I count to a hundred ten times.”

“You don’t start counting until you don’t hear a sound.” He nudged the boy down the ladder. “Hurry. Not a sound. I love you, kiddo.”

“I love you, Granddad.”

He shut the door, and as he’d practiced and practiced, he concealed the door. The handle melted from sight, not a seam showed.

They didn’t knock or call for him to come out. They broke in, front and back doors, armed. Even as he started to put his hands up, one fired at him. Not a bullet, though it gave him pain. He staggered under the tranquilizer.

He heard their boots storming through the house, heard orders shouted to find the kid.

He came to, his mind muddled, in a small room. Restrained to a bunk, he struggled to think through the drug.

Little Abe. Had they found his little boy?

They could do whatever they wanted with him as long as Abe stayed safe.

They tortured him, using a paralytic while they ran their hideous tests. Sometimes he heard screaming, but it never lasted long. No one spoke to him except to interrogate, and after a few days, not even then.

He comforted himself he’d kept Abe safe. Let himself dream of that wonderful laugh, those mischievous eyes.

But then, the days, the weeks, the months of solitary captivity, the drugs, the brutal tests smothered all hope.

Was that Abe he heard screaming? Calling to him for help?

He screamed, and when they came in, he tried to fight, tried to find the magick through the drug. He sparked a fire, enough to singe one of his captors, enough to earn a beating until someone else snapped out an order.

They strapped him to the bunk again, poured more drugs into him, ran more tests.

They drove him mad and the madness drove him into the dark.

And the dark was sly.

He gave himself a seizure, just a small one, just enough to have them cut back the dose of the drugs. He showed them only compliance, even when they took him to the showers, hosed him down. Even when they tortured him.

All the while he gathered the dark around him, offered what he was to it, and heard its chortling laugh inside his head.

They would burn, all burn. Black fire, black crows circling, black smoke rising to blot out the sun.

He called on the dark, gave it words in his head he hadn’t known. Saw it smile at him, heard its promises.

They would burn, all burn, and he would rise from the flames. Triumphant.

So when an agonized faerie cursed her tormentor, Abraham loosed all his hate, his rage, his madness, poured it out of himself in black flame. And they burned, all burned.

But the dark is sly as madness is, and swept him down with the rest.

Shaking, sweating, Fallon slid down the wall. “I saw. I saw. I’m sick. I’m going to be sick.”

“Hush now.” Mallick gathered her up. “Sleep now.”

He took her under, took her away.

After he laid her on her bed, he lit white candles, set white sage to smoking, bathed her face. When she stirred, he urged a potion on her to ease the sickness and shock.

“I saw …” Could still see. Would always see. “I have to tell you.”

“You did. You told me while you saw, while you heard, while you felt. You told me all of it. You need to rest. You pushed further than you should have. You weren’t ready for so much.”

“If I wasn’t ready, I couldn’t have done it.”

“If you’d been fully ready, you wouldn’t have gotten sick. That should settle now, and I’ll make tea that will soothe the rest.”

But she grabbed his hand. “He was a good man, Mallick. He was a good man. A doctor, a healer. He sacrificed himself to save his grandson. Then they wouldn’t even tell him if they’d found the little boy, if the kid was okay. They wouldn’t tell him. Like they wouldn’t tell the girl—Janis—where her mother was. Why would they be that cruel?”

“To break the spirit. A broken spirit is more debilitating than a broken body.”

“They broke his mind instead, and that’s dangerous. They broke his mind, so he opened to the dark, and the dark heard him. Something dark heard him and …”

“Exploited him.”

“Yeah, exploited. And lied to him, because he’s as dead as the rest. Janis never hurt anyone, but I think when she cursed the lab guy, the one who hurt her, it gave whatever worked in Abraham more, even more. I think—there were so many voices I couldn’t hear at first, so I had to push them back. But I think so many had broken, so many wanted to hit back, somehow, it all rose up, and when Abraham lit the fuse, it blew.”