Daemons in the Mist (The Marked Ones Trilogy: Book One) Read online

  The Marked Ones Trilogy

  • Book One •

  Alicia Kat Vancil

  A taste of what’s to come

  “Now?” she asked as she looked over at Nikki and Shawn who were amidst a conversation with some fellow clubbers, all of them laughing so hard they were nearly gasping.

  “Sure, why not. What have we got to lose?” I said, with a shrug.

  “Okay.” She smiled broadly at me, and we wove our way toward the door.

  As we broke out from the club and dashed into the cool night air I had never felt more alive. We ran down the street toward the future, laughing like idiots. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been this happy—this free.

  Why in the name of all reason I had said yes, I will never know. Maybe it was because Nualla was beyond tempting, and I was dying to know her secrets. Or that I was angry with my parents for never being there, and I wanted someone to be close to me. Or that I was really, really drunk. But it was probably because, when fate throws you the one thing you have always wanted, you grab hold of it and never let go.

  COPYRIGHT

  Daemons in the Mist Copyright © 2013 by Alicia Kat Vancil

  Copyright © 2011, 2012 by Alicia Kat Dillman

  www.katgirlstudio.com

  All rights reserved. First edition 2011. Second edition 2012. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Korat Publishing

  Third Edition July 2013

  Manufactured in California

  ISBN: 978-1-937288-03-7 (paperback)

  Kindle ASIN: B00DRBR7T6

  BOOK SUMMARY

  Accidentally marrying a beautiful stranger—what’s the worst that could happen?

  When seventeen-year-old Patrick Connolly accepts an invitation for a spur-of-the-moment weekend trip to Vegas from his longtime crush, the beautiful and seemingly unattainable Nualla Galathea, the last thing he expects is to wake up married to her. Unsure of how he could get this incredibly lucky and trying desperately not to screw it up, Patrick suddenly finds himself thrust into a world of life-altering truths and things that shouldn’t exist, because the girl of his dreams appears to be hiding deadly secrets behind her distractingly beautiful eyes.

  CREDITS

  Edited by Scott Aleric & Jennifer Vancil

  Book design by Alicia Kat Vancil

  Cover illustration © 2013 Alicia Kat Vancil

  www.katgirlstudio.com/hirekat

  Cover photograph © Alex - Fotolia.com

  Cover photograph © Oleksandr Dibrova - Fotolia.com

  DEDICATION

  For my parents, who encouraged me to create the worlds that live in my head. For Scott, who suffered through the kissing parts and laughed at the clever parts. For Sally, for always being there when I needed you the most. And for Chris, for admitting you forgot at times that my characters weren’t real people.

  PRONUNCIATION GUIDE

  Arius are-ee-us

  Centrina cen-tree-nah

  Cellarius cell-lar-ee-us

  Chancell shan-cell

  Chancellar shan-cell-lar

  Chancellarius shan-cell-lar-ee-us

  Daemon day-mon

  Daemotic day-mah-tic

  Daenara day-nar-ah

  Denaya den-ay-ah

  Galathea gala-thee-ah

  Kakodaemon kay-koh-day-mon

  Kakodemoss kay-koh-day-moss

  Kalo kay-low

  Kalodaemon kay-low-day-mon

  Nikkalla nick-a-lah

  Neodaemon knee-oh-day-mon

  Nualla new-all-ah

  Tammore ta-more

  1

  Secrets in the Mist

  Monday, January 9th

  NUALLA

  I looked out the window at the never-ending sea of fog, concealing the city as it came alive in its morning rush. In the mist, everything seemed timeless and still and wondrous. The fog drifted past buildings, their tops poking out and making it look all the world like there were castles in the sky.

  San Francisco.

  The exception, it seemed, to California’s bright and sunny weather. It wasn’t the foggiest city in the world, but it was pretty damn close. Countless people had written books based here, and songs and movies. Even Mark Twain was quoted as saying, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” Though if I heard one more tourist say it, I was going to hit someone.

  “So, socks or leggings?”

  “Huh?” I turned to see my cousin Nikki standing in the doorway holding up two types of leg coverings. One was a pair of bright purple leggings, the other was a pair of paler blue thigh-high socks with penguins dancing across them.

  “Which should I wear?” she asked again as she jiggled them for effect.

  Nikki and I went to Bayside Academy, a private school for the Bay Area’s elite, so of course that meant uniforms. I was glad our school had gone in for the whole tieless-V-neck-knit-sweater-over-pleated-skirt look because personally, I thought ties on girls was really creepy. However since our school uniforms didn’t extend to things like shoes, socks, or hair, so some students—like Nikki—went to town with their individuality.

  I clicked my phone on to check the day’s weather. “Nikki, it’s like forty-five degrees out.”

  “Socks it is,” she announced, sitting on the edge of my bed to slip them on.

  “You’re crazy!”

  “Don’t you know it,” she replied with a wink.

  I rolled my eyes at her and stood up. I had gone for the more sensible I’m-not-going-to-freeze-my-ass-off standard black leggings with tall faux fur-lined boots for good measure.

  Another look at the time said we’d better head out, or we were totally going to be late. “Come on, Nikki. Let’s not be late the first day of spring semester, okay?”

  Minutes later, we coasted down the street, the buildings sliding into existence just a few seconds before we passed them, my car’s engine quietly purring. Most people hated driving in the fog, but I loved it. It kept you on your toes; you had to be ready for what might appear before you at any moment.

  Like this cat darting across the road in front of me.

  I took my foot off the gas as she streaked past me, a flash of smoky gray, like the fog materializing into a solid form. As her paws hit the curb on the other side of the street she turned her lamp-like eyes to stare at me.

  She knows me, the true me. Not this mask I have to wear each day.

  There was something profoundly odd about it. That a cat could be more calm and rational than—

  “Hellooo, earth to Nualla,” Nikki said as she waved a hand in front of my face. “What are you looking at?”

  The cat was gone, disappearing into the mist like
a dream. “Nothing,” I answered slowly. And that’s when I realized the cat had used a crosswalk. Smart little thing—even she wasn’t stupid enough to jaywalk. I mean sure she had just crossed against the red, but hell, at least she hadn’t been mindlessly listening to an iPod as she stepped off the curb. Sometimes I thought they—cats—were smarter than people. Or maybe they just had a higher level of self-preservation.

  I returned my focus to the road and hit the gas. The buildings floated past, an odd collection of shapes so far from matching it was almost funny.

  The city weaved together stringent modern simplicity and Victorian mystique in a way that almost seemed intentional in its randomness. Cultures seamlessly blending into each other so slowly as to be unnoticed, while at other times changing rather abruptly—like the Chinatown Gate—announcing your passage into another world in large, imposing glory. The residences themselves were almost as odd. The houses in most cities were colors like tan, brick, and the occasional sage, but not San Francisco; it was a mélange of colors. I had even seen a house once that was lilac with chartreuse trim.

  Yeah—chartreuse.

  The light flipped to red and I drifted to a stop. I leaned back into the seat and folded my arms as I glanced over at my cousin. Nikki sipped her coffee in the seat next to me, the steam rolling off it already fogging up the windows. She wiped the window with her sleeve, so she could peer out at the buildings.

  “You know it’s just gonna fog up again in like two seconds,” I pointed out with an amused snort.

  “Then I’ll just wipe it again,” she answered as she slid her arm across the window like a windshield wiper.

  I rolled my eyes at her and pressed my foot to the gas as the red blur in the distance shifted to green. The globes of light lining the streets floated past, the sky still too dark for them to register that it was morning.

  It was like driving through a dreamland—some of the things you saw just seemed way too unreal. Like people in shiny disco ball Gaga-esque clothes dancing outside Ghirardelli Square, or joggers in tutus, or water valves painted up to look like videogame mushrooms—just a few of the crazy things I had seen on the misty streets of San Francisco.

  But the mists also held a secret.

  They concealed a world that existed between yours, around yours, underneath yours. Though we might have looked like you, acted like you, we were not like you. And so as humanity raced forward, trying to catalogue and destroy the last mysteries of this world, we eluded your grasp. Always one step ahead of you, hiding away the things you refused to believe could be possible. Allowing us to pass among you unnoticed, carrying our secrets to the grave.

  And so you had carved us into your myths, into your fears, distorting us into something that no longer seemed real. And we became your stories, some of us working in your favor, while others tried to tear you down. Protectors and destroyers. A world of opposing forces battling for the upper hand. Muses, demigods, devils—the humans of antiquity gave us many names. But we claimed one for ourselves.

  Daemons.

  Every triumph and travesty in human history had a daemon behind the scenes. Like mist, we run through your world; seeping into your lives and disappearing when you try to look too hard. In the beginning, we tried to reveal ourselves to you. But well…let’s just say concealing our true nature was just better for everyone.

  Sometimes I wondered if humanity was ready to know the truth now. That we had been silent passengers all along in their struggle to thrive.

  Probably not. People get crazy when you mess with their paradigms.

  As we arrived at school, the fog was already giving way to lighter swells of mist. I pulled into the last above-ground spot and opened the door into the utterly cold morning.

  I burrowed down deeper into my heavy black velvet pea coat with a shiver. The wind was picking up, swirling the mist past the students. I could already tell Nikki was rethinking her choice of socks over leggings by the expression on her face.

  She turned to me, her teeth already starting to chatter. “Ready to go inside?”

  “Naw, I think we should hang out here longer since it’s a balmy forty-five degrees out.”

  “The weather thingy could have been wrong,” Nikki said with a shivering shrug.

  “By what, thirty degrees?” I asked dubiously.

  “Sometimes you really suck,” Nikki grumbled as she crossed her arms and scowled at me.

  “Yeah, but you know you love me,” I stated as I looped my arm through hers and started walking toward the building.

  We drifted among the other students—just another set of pretty faces in a sea of prep school uniforms.

  2

  You Don’t See Me

  Monday, January 9th

  PATRICK

  Every morning they arrived by luxury sport car, chauffeured town car, or taxi. I came via MUNI. My parents were just barely well-off enough to get me into Bayside Academy. They were apparently not wealthy enough to let me drive a car in the city.

  I didn’t mind the bus, really—you could find the most interesting people in San Francisco on the bus. Foreign grandmothers chatting in a language you couldn’t understand. Convention goers with badges that proudly touted their names for all to see. Art students carrying more supplies than body mass. Urban yuppies playing with the newest handheld tech. A whole city’s worth of culture crammed like sardines in a 320 square-foot space. If you wanted to get to know a city—I mean really wanted to know it—then riding its public transit was the way to go.

  I never felt more at home—more like I was part of something—than when I was crammed among all the people on the bus. Just a tiny piece in the sea of life. Occasionally I would get the stares from those who recognized my school uniform and would give me that, why’s a kid like you riding the bus? look. Mostly they just ignored me, leaving me alone to make up their life stories in my head.

  I ignored one such stare and looked out the window. The fog was impressive today, drowning everything in a misty cover. The tops of tall buildings disappeared into it, leaving you to wonder just how tall they really were. On mornings like this you were lucky to see a block or two away.

  I pulled the signal cord for my stop and fought my way to the door—always an adventure in and of itself. The stops around Market were the worst; most of the time it was like trying to swim upstream through a school of angry fish. Half the time you literally fell off the bus onto the sidewalk as people pushed past you to get on.

  The bus lurched to a stop and the doors popped open. I stepped off the bus alone. It wasn’t only the students that didn’t seem to ride the bus around here. Stuffy rich attitudes practically wafted through the air in this part of the city.

  Sighing, I started trudging down the sidewalk toward the school. The air whipped past with a biting cold to it. January in San Francisco, cold as crap but at least it wasn’t raining sideways. If you think I’m joking about the rain, I’m not. The wind in San Francisco was a tricky beast; you could walk down one street and have it gently tousling your hair, then turn the corner and get smacked in the face by a gale.

  I came to the corner and took a deep breath before I crossed the street to the school. Bayside Academy was a nice enough school, but it was hard to feel at home in a place filled with the children of diplomats and CEOs.

  The campus sported an impressive amount of grass and trees for being in the middle of a city. The building itself was three stories with a glassed-over atrium and underground parking—but what didn’t have underground parking in the city, really?

  The front of the school was nearly deserted. Like most winter mornings, everyone was in a hurry to get into the building—though most wouldn’t actually make it to class until just before the bell rang.

  As I neared the entrance of the school building, an electric blue Aston Martin Vanquish pulled into the l
ast available spot in the above-ground parking. Everyone stared—in a parking lot of nice cars this one was in a league completely its own. The door opened, and Nualla Galathea stepped out, shuddering at the cold. I stood transfixed as she glided toward the building in front of me, arm in arm with her cousin Nikkalla “Nikki” Varris. They didn’t look at me as they passed, and I fell into step behind them.

  Nualla had the most beautiful hair I had ever seen. Not the short kind of long we see in magazines and movies today, but the kind straight out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting. Black loose spirals spilling down her back to just below her hips. It might have seemed old fashioned if it wasn’t for the lapis-blue streaks through parts of it. Her cousin Nikki’s hair was in sharp contrast—pale blond with a few light blue streaks on either side and a short a-line cut. But the two of them were extremely similar in build with the same slender waspish shapes of dancers, heart shaped faces, and large eyes.

  They were some of the extremely popular kids, but theirs was an odd sort of popularity. With that much beauty and wealth, they should probably have had hordes of friends. But they didn’t. Instead they seemed to spend the majority of their time with Shawn Vallen. And although the three of them were friendly to all the students, they mostly kept to themselves. But it was a self-imposed isolation; most of the students at the school looked at them with a strange sense of admiration. In a lot of towns the beautiful popular kids would have used their gifts as an excuse to abuse the other “lesser” students, but not these three.