Gift of the Darkness (The Gateway Trackers Book 7) Read online

  Also by E.E. Holmes

  THE WORLD OF THE GATEWAY

  The Gateway Trilogy (Series 1)

  Spirit Legacy

  Spirit Prophecy

  Spirit Ascendancy

  The Gateway Trackers (Series 2)

  Whispers of the Walker

  Plague of the Shattered

  Awakening of the Seer

  Portraits of the Forsaken

  Heart of the Rebellion

  Soul of the Sentinel

  Gift of the Darkness

  THE RIFTMAGIC SAGA

  What the Lady’s Maid Knew

  Gift of the Darkness

  The Gateway Trackers Book 7

  E.E. Holmes

  Lily Faire Publishing

  Lily Faire Publishing

  Townsend, MA

  Copyright © 2019 by E.E. Holmes

  All rights reserved

  www.lilyfairepublishing.com

  www.eeholmes.com

  ISBN 978-1-7339352-3-4 (Print edition)

  ISBN 978-1-7339352-2-7 (Digital edition)

  Publisher’s note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover design by James T. Egan of Bookfly Design LLC

  Author photography by Cydney Scott Photography

  To you, Reader, who has traversed every page of this journey with me, thank you for the adventure.

  To die, to sleep;

  To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;

  For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

  When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

  Must give us pause: there’s the respect

  That makes calamity of so long life;

  For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

  The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

  The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,

  The insolence of office and the spurns

  That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

  When he himself might his quietus make

  With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

  To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

  But that the dread of something after death,

  The undiscover’d country from whose bourn

  No traveller returns, puzzles the will

  And makes us rather bear those ills we have

  Than fly to others that we know not of?

  -Hamlet, Act III scene i

  Contents

  Also by E.E. Holmes

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  1. The Place Beyond the Door

  2. The Waking

  3. Promises

  4. A Second Sentinel

  5. Control

  6. Gameplan

  7. Who We Are

  8. Body Swap

  9. The Messenger

  10. Unlikely Allies

  11. The Key and the Truth

  12. At the Ruins

  13. A Bit of Shine

  14. At the Heart of the Screaming Woods

  15. Artifice

  16. The Warning

  17. The Knife's Edge

  18. An Audience

  19. Alliances

  20. Lion and Lamb

  21. Gift of the Darkness

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  “WHY DID NO ONE come to fetch me?” Finn’s voice was sharp with fear.

  “I didn’t want to leave her,” Flavia replied, tearful.

  Finn turned on Kiernan with an accusatory stare. “And you?”

  “Don’t blame him, Finn, you’re the one who told him to keep watch over them and make sure they weren’t discovered,” Hannah cut in, taking a step closer to Kiernan.

  “We all agreed not to draw attention to what Jess was doing,” Milo said. “We could hardly have come bursting into a Caomhnóir meeting without setting off all kinds of alarm bells. Everyone is freaking out as it is.”

  Finn began pacing, running a frantic hand through his hair. “How long has it been?”

  “Seven hours and thirty-two minutes,” Flavia said at once.

  “Have you ever known a Traveler to Rift that long?” Finn asked.

  Flavia shook her head. “The Casting is temporary. The effects of the herbs wear off naturally, and once they do, the Rifter should awaken involuntarily if they haven’t already chosen to do so.”

  “What do you mean, chosen to do so? How do you choose to wake up?” Milo asked.

  “While you are Rifting, in the vision, there is always a door you can choose to walk through. The decision to walk through that door will end the Rifting no matter how quickly you choose to take it,” Flavia explained.

  “So, then, what if Jess couldn’t find the door?” Hannah asked. “What if there just wasn’t one?”

  Flavia shook her head. “That’s not how it works. There’s always a door.”

  “This isn’t how it works either!” Finn cried. “You said that she should be awake by now.”

  Flavia blinked tears out of her eyes and swiped them furiously off her flushed cheeks. “I know. I’m sorry, Finn, I wish I had the answer.”

  Everyone in the room stared down at Jess. She lay precisely where she had settled herself, one hand resting peacefully on her stomach, the other wrapped around the teacup full of herbs, from which the last of the smoke had long since risen, leaving nothing but a heap of cold fragrant ashes. Her face was utterly impassive, betraying not a twitch of an eyelid nor a murmured word. If it weren’t for the steady rising and falling of her chest, there would be not a single indication that she was even present inside her body.

  Finn knelt beside her and tenderly brushed a stray hair from her cheek with his finger. “Last time, when she had trouble coming out of it, she was thrashing about, clearly agitated.”

  “Yes, I remember,” Flavia said.

  “This is altogether different,” Finn said, continuing to stroke Jess’ forehead. “She’s so calm, so peaceful.”

  “I know that ought to make me feel better somehow, but it doesn’t,” Flavia said. “Not at all.”

  Hannah gave a dry sob. Kiernan hesitated a moment, and then put his arm around her shoulder. Hannah leaned into him gratefully, clutching at his shirt.

  “So, what do we do?” Milo asked, trying to sound robustly logical, but failing as his voice cracked with fear. “What is Rifting protocol here? What does the ‘Pocket Handbook for Rifting with Friends’ have to say about this?”

  Flavia gave him a sad smile. “Traveler traditions are largely oral—even our language. It has been one of the most challenging aspects of being a Traveler Scribe—the lack of comprehensive written documents. There is no handbook for this. But my experiences with Rifting have been extensive. I have studied it and I have participated in it. I have experimented with it, and observed others experiment. I do not have a precedent for this.”

  “It’s as though she’s reached a deeper level of sleep—a deeper trance. Is that possible?” Finn asked.

  “Anything is possible, I suppose,” Flavia replied. “The artwork provided by Agnes Isherwood was unique. It may have allowed for Jess to have a unique Rifting experience. We won’t know until she comes out of it and is able to express to us what happened to her.”

  “But what if she doesn’t wake up?” Hannah cried.

  “Hannah, don’t—” Milo began, but Hannah silenced him with a hand.

  “Don’t what? Don’t say out loud what everyone in this room is thinking? Don�
��t look a very real possibility in the face? I’m scared, Milo. We never should have let her do this. We don’t know anything about that Tansy Hag thing, and we just did exactly what she said, even though she’s been locked up for centuries in a place reserved for the most dangerous spirits in the world! What the hell were we all thinking, taking the word of that… that thing and letting Jess stake her life on it?!”

  “That thing is just a Traveler woman’s spirit, and nothing more,” Flavia said, and her voice, though quiet, had an edge to it that cut through the room. “Do not let your fear cloud your knowledge. You know that every spirit is just a human being.”

  “Human beings can be evil,” Hannah countered.

  “I don’t deny it,” Flavia said. “We both know that, firsthand. But Jess had faith that this was what she was meant to do. She believed that the path of clues had been laid out for her, and for her alone. To have ignored them, after finding this, would have been madness,” Flavia said, holding up Agnes Isherwood’s portrait of Jess.

  “Flavia is right,” Finn said, and Hannah looked at him as though his words were a betrayal. “I’m scared, too, Hannah, but we are letting our fear control us. We didn’t know what would happen before Jess Rifted, and we don’t understand it now, but Jess was unflinching in her belief that this was the right thing to do. We have to cling to that belief for her until she comes back to us, however long that takes.”

  Hannah sobbed again, unable to reply.

  “We must keep her safe from discovery until she returns,” Finn continued, addressing everyone now. “The events in the courtyard have the entire castle on edge. I shudder to think what might happen if we add another log to this inferno. No one must know, do you hear me? We watch over her until the Rifting is done.”

  Milo nodded once, his expression fierce. Kiernan too, inclined his head. Flavia gave Finn an encouraging smile. Hannah alone could find no strength to reply, instead burying her face in Kiernan’s shoulder and succumbing to a storm of tears.

  Finn bent down and kissed Jess lightly on the forehead. “Come back to me, love,” he whispered to her, so quietly that none of the others could hear. “Find what you were meant to find and come back to me.”

  1

  The Place Beyond the Door

  “YOU’RE… YOU’RE AGNES Isherwood, aren’t you?” I asked, although the answer was already ringing in my bones. That feeling I’d had before, when I’d first seen the rolling hills of the English countryside, or the first time that Hannah and I had grasped our hands together, ran through my body once again, singing in my veins—that sense of belonging and connection, that sense that I was coming home to something.

  “Yes,” Agnes replied, taking a step closer. “And you’re Jessica. I recognize your face. I have seen it in my dreams. I was afraid you may never come.”

  Agnes turned and started walking away from me, her candle illuminating a narrow slice of the darkness, but revealing nothing. I took a step to follow her, across a floor that seemed to have no substance, through a place that had no defining features.

  “Come along,” she said over her shoulder, smiling encouragingly at me.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “That’s not exactly the right question,” Agnes replied.

  I rolled this cryptic answer around in my head for a moment as the darkness around me began to resolve itself. The blackness gathered into some places and receded from others, creating shadows and shapes that grew more and more distinctive. A stone floor gradually appeared beneath my feet, and a stone ceiling above my head. My legs began to strain as the floor beneath me rose in a steady incline and formed into stairs.

  “So… what is the right question?” I asked.

  “There isn’t really a ‘where,’ here,” Agnes said, rising up the endless stairs as though floating. “Nor is there a ‘when.’”

  “I’m… I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t expect you to. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. Do not let it trouble you.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I muttered under my breath.

  Agnes pushed through a door that materialized from nothing the moment she placed her hand upon it. I gasped. We stood inside a round castle tower that I knew very well.

  “We’re at Fairhaven,” I said wonderingly to myself. “This is Fiona’s tower.”

  Agnes set her candle down upon a desk under the window. Outside the tower, I could see neither sun, nor cloud, nor stars—only a strange and empty blackness. “This is Fairhaven, yes, but it is not Fiona’s tower. It is mine.”

  “Yours?” I whispered.

  “Yes, indeed,” Agnes said, and turned to gaze at me again.

  It was remarkable how strong the resemblance was—I could see Karen and my mother and Hannah, all staring back out at me as one from that singular, lovely face. And a remarkable face it was—wide, shining eyes, ivory complexion, rose-tinted mouth. I wondered if her flawless skin and lustrous hair were a result of Leeching, like so many Durupinen, or simply a manifestation of the Rift. I decided I didn’t have the courage to ask her.

  “You said that you’ve been waiting for me,” I prompted.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “For… for how long?”

  “As I told you before, there is no ‘when’ here.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly, trying to wrap my brain around what she meant but failing miserably. “I know you said there’s no ‘where’ here, but… this is the Rift, right? It’s different than when I’ve been here before. It feels so… real.”

  It was true. It had only just occurred to me, but the dreamlike quality of the Rift had seeped away, revealing something altogether more… solid. The wonderland surreality of it all had faded. Now the stone beneath my feet felt hard and rough. The night air raised goosebumps on the skin of my forearms, and the room in which we stood had none of the strange, nonsensical elements I’d come to expect in the Rift. The details had resolved now—a fur rug on the floor before the fireplace; herbs hanging in bunches, drying from the rafters; piles of scrolls and books upon shelves; a desk scattered over with parchment and quills. It looked and felt, in every respect, like a perfectly ordinary room.

  “Let me see your arms,” Agnes said, holding her hands out to me.

  “Huh…?” But she had already grasped my hands in hers. They were warm and familiar, and I felt, not for the first time, a rush of energy, the electricity of blood that recognized itself coursing through another person’s veins. But if Agnes felt the same thing, she did not remark upon it. Instead, she turned my hands over in hers, revealing the intricate artwork I had copied from her sketch.

  “You’ve done well,” she said with an approving nod, pushing up the sleeves of her dress to reveal the very same artwork, slightly faded, upon her own forearms. “I must say, I was worried it may not work. I had the Traveler Scribe to help me, but I feared you may not put all the pieces together without help, too.”

  “I… I did have help,” I muttered. “Sorry, but… when you say a Traveler helped you… did you mean the Tansy Hag?”

  Agnes’ face scrunched into a frown. “The who?”

  “I… nevermind.” My head swam as Agnes’ touch continued to make my blood race.

  “We mustn’t waste time,” Agnes said, her hands slipping from mine. Her face was creased with concentration as she took up her candle again and used it to light the other candles that had been placed around the room. “I do not know how long the door will last.”

  My heart sped up. “You don’t know—what?”

  “The door, the door,” Agnes said. “The door I created so that I could find you. The second door. I do not know how long we have. We are stretching the boundaries of known magic.”

  My head was beginning to spin. I felt sick. “Please explain. Now.”

  Agnes clearly read something alarming in my face, because she composed herself at once. She put her candle down in a carved wooden bracket upon the wall and turned back to me. “Allow me to explain as
best I can, although, I must warn you that even I do not fully understand it.” She took a deep breath and when she spoke again, seemed to be choosing her words very deliberately. “Time is not the straight and narrow road that so many of us believe it to be. Our lives are not destined to march along its strict path, never wavering, never veering. The threads of our lives are intertwined. They are woven in and out of each other, twisted and tangled and knotted together, broken and snipped and retied again, resolving at last into the tapestries that we recognize as ourselves. The feelings and memories and connections that intrude upon us at unlikely moments are simply those threads, looping back upon themselves, connecting our past, our present, and our future into a single, living, pulsing thing. Do you understand?”

  “I… I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I guess so. So what you’re saying is that I… I haven’t gone back in time, but time sort of… overlaps with itself here?”

  Agnes nodded her head encouragingly. “More or less,” she said. “And as I don’t know how long we have until our threads part ways again, I will be brief. First, I need for you to answer a question for me. When you awaken, in the time and place you inhabit, is there something unusual happening there? Something to do with the Geatgrimas?”

  My breath caught in my throat. “Yes. Yes, that’s why I’m here. That’s why I went Rifting. I’ve been trying to understand what’s going on, and I thought I might get some clarity here. Do… do you know what’s happening with the Geatgrima?”

  Agnes’ eyes were closed, a pained expression on her face. “I knew it. I knew the time would come when we would pay for what we’ve done.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, a shred of desperation in my voice now. “What have we done?”

  Agnes sank down onto the fur rug before the fire, and I lowered myself beside her. When she opened her eyes again, her expression was almost unfathomably sad. “Before I tell you, you must understand that we had little choice. The Necromancers had stormed every stronghold. We were outnumbered and desperate. The spirit world was in danger of falling into their hands, of being exploited and torn apart in the Necromancer quest for immortality.”