No, Nora thought. She’s supposed to be the brave one.
Nora shook herself and shoved the thought aside. She and Indigo were the same person. She had to remember that, because now there was another voice in her head, speaking, demanding her attention. A thundering whisper inside her head that felt as if it came from deep inside her. From the shadows. From the black void at her core, where her power came from … the space within her that she had never understood.
But you never really tried to understand, she thought. When any sane person would have gone mad searching for answers, you didn’t even look. Why is that?
“Who are you?” she demanded, speaking inward, to that void.
The old woman above her muttered a quick prayer and crossed herself as she backed away.
Nora’s voice helped her clear her own head, but she realized she’d spoken too loudly, and as she looked around, she saw other people nearby, many of them staring at her. She stood in the middle of an area that had been roped off and nearly barricaded by heavy piles of freshly sorted dirt. Vases and fragments and columns were half-buried in the ground—some kind of archaeological dig. Nearby, two men with guns were looking her way. They wore uniforms, but didn’t strike her as police. Security guards, maybe. They didn’t look happy to see her.
Surrender to me, that dark voice commanded from the void inside her.
Nora shuddered and hugged herself tightly, a wave of revulsion flowing through her. It was really there—he, for she was certain the voice was male—was deep within her. His words made her insides rumble, shook her bones, thudded against her like loud music at a concert or fireworks exploding right overhead.
She wanted to be sick.
“Who are you?” she asked again, quieter now, wondering if she even needed to speak the words aloud for him to hear them.
As if in some twisted reply to her thoughts, that voice pushed upward and she felt her mouth open, lips forming words against her will. He spoke through her, but the voice was not her own.
I am Damastes. You have kept me locked away long enough. Now I will be free.
The words ripped through her and echoed and sent Nora staggering backward. A flicker of familiarity touched her mind. Had she heard the voice before, back when—
No! She didn’t have time for that.
Nora tried to move and felt the world tilt madly. Her legs refused to obey her commands and her arms shuddered. Her mouth pulled into a scowl on one side, as if she were some kind of human marionette and the voice of the void—this presence called Damastes—was pulling her strings.
Idiot girl, you’ve stepped into my home now. You stand in my temple, and here I will finally take control.
Pain lanced through her, forced her into a shuddering convulsion. There were more words, but she did not hear them so much as she felt them. Her body seized, twisting into a spasmodic arch even as she fell to the ground. The back of her skull slammed into the dirt and her left arm slapped a clay pot that rolled and shattered.
The armed men came for her then. Their faces were lost to her, their words incoherent shouts of alarm, but she understood their intent. She had trespassed where she was not allowed. They would punish her for that. She reached out her hands to draw the darkness to her, ready to become Indigo, to fight if she had to fight. But nothing happened. The guards slowed, moving warily now, and one of them drew his gun.
Indigo? she thought. Half in confusion and half in summons. Nora had created Indigo as a separate persona, someone who had the courage and fortitude to do things Nora might not otherwise have been able to endure, but she and Indigo were one and the same. They were. Which meant the power was her power.
So why could she not wield it now?
Nora tried to reach out to the nearby shadows, to draw a cloak of darkness around her—and she felt Damastes fight her from the void. Just as he’d pulled her strings, he held the reins of her power tightly.
You dare interfere with me? You, who hide in your own shadows and bury your own world beneath a mountain of lies? No more.
The words slammed into her, crushed her under their weight. The first of the guards reached her, grabbed at Nora’s arm, and then reeled back, screaming as Indigo lashed out. Shadows fluttered like hummingbirds and spilled from her flesh into his, cutting through his skin and muscles as they pulsed their way up to his shoulder.
Nora twisted and rolled, her body still fighting against every attempt she made at control. Her muscles jittered as if electrified, and her teeth clamped down hard enough she feared they might shatter.
Indigo screamed. Damastes roared.
A lurking presence from the deepest waters of her soul, he rose now like a tidal wave, dwarfing her, surely large enough to crush her. Nora felt herself dragged down inside herself, her mind trying to escape the presence of the great darkness that tore through her, seeking a way to break its bonds.
Set me free! the demon roared.
For what could it be other than a demon? The thought turned her blood to ice. If she’d had control over her body, she would have wept.
But how am I holding him? What am I doing to stop his escape?
She had no answer to that question, but it seemed Indigo might. A strange calm came over her, a confidence that had been inconceivable a moment before, and Nora knew then that Indigo had surfaced. Perhaps Indigo had no soul of her own, but she did have her own identity. Her own courage. Nora might call upon the darkness, caress and persuade it, but it was Indigo who had spent years mastering the shadows, turning them into her servants. Her weapons.
Nora jerked side to side, whipped her head around. Clawed at her own flesh. Fell to her knees and curled into a fetal ball. The guards shouted at her, both of them with their guns out. Others were shouting. Somewhere not far off, police sirens screamed. But the real battle was being waged inside her, a tug-of-war over the shadows of that internal void. Nora opened her mouth and two voices cried out, neither of them truly belonging to her. Indigo and Damastes fought, lashing at each other, those twin serpents of darkness twisting and diving, two shades of black. Nora lay on the ground and did her best to breathe.
The second guard shouted orders she could never hope to obey. In the space between heartbeats, she saw him begin to squeeze the trigger on his gun.
Nora saw him, but it was Indigo who reached out with a tendril of darkness and whipped at the guard, intending to knock him backward. That other presence, so large and potent, magnified the attack, pouring ebony rage out of the void and turning that tendril into a battering ram that shattered bone and pulped muscle. The guard sailed backward into a half-submerged column of stone with enough force to blast chunks of the ancient structure into the air.
What remained of him oozed down the column.
Nora froze, too stunned even to fight that inner war. Even Indigo was horrified.