Read Darklands for Free Online Page A

revealed, child,” she’d said. “You must keep going.”
    So every once in a while, I forced myself to do what I was doing now. Taking another spoonful of cold, creamy chocolate for courage, I opened the book to a random page. It didn’t matter where I started. The book would share its contents with me only when it decided to do so. And anyway, the contents moved around inside its pages. A page showing an illustration today could be a solid block of text tomorrow, or vice versa.
    Just thinking about
The Book of Utter Darkness
made my head ache. Trying to read it was infinitely worse.
    I stared at the page, a jumble of unfamiliar characters, waiting to see if its meaning appeared in my head. The letters blurred.Nothing. The pages went double as my eyes crossed. I blinked and scooped out more ice cream.
    As I lifted the spoon to my mouth, a glob of ice cream fell and splatted on the page.
Crap.
I jumped up to grab a paper towel. Mab would be beyond annoyed if she knew I was dropping dairy products on her ancient, unique manuscript.
    I dabbed at the blob. A surge of power shot from the book and up my arm, buzzing through my demon mark and hitting my brain like a bolt of lightning. A white flash exploded behind my eyes, and scenes sped through my mind like a movie played on a super-fast projector.
    First, a man’s face in close-up: pale skin; a long, straight nose; and black lashes framing eyes so dark they seemed to dim the light. Pryce, my demi-demon “cousin” who wanted to lead demons from their realm to overrun the human plane. His mouth moved, but he made no sound—my ears were filled with a roaring like hurricane-strength winds. Pryce sneered at someone. The scene shifted and I saw that “someone” was me. We stood in a cemetery. I recognized the place—it was in Boston, on the night of last February’s Paranormal Appreciation Day concert. The night Pryce had tried to release the demonic essence that would make demons too strong for humans to withstand.
    Then Pryce’s eyes closed, and he collapsed on the ground. The vision switched to me, driving my flaming sword over and over into the body of a huge, writhing demon. God, I was bloody. I was killing Cysgod, Pryce’s shadow demon. Without his demon half, Pryce became nothing more than a living shell.
    Another scene, another face. This man looked like Pryce, but he was older, bearded, with a crazy gleam in his eye. He smiled, revealing rotted teeth, and a high-pitched giggle cut through the background roar. This was Myrddin, Pryce’s father. The Old Ones had released him from centuries-long imprisonment to make a deal—he’d help them gain eternal life, and they’d help him resuscitate Pryce. The vision showed Myrddin stooping over a freshly murdered human, capturing the departing life force in a jar. Suddenly, Myrddin was in some sort of lab, transferring the life force to the comatose Pryce.
    It had taken the life forces of five people to revive Pryce. The last had been Myrddin himself. I could see the moment now—me, bloody again, this time killing Myrddin’s shadow demon,as his mortal half gave his own life force to his son. Pryce sitting up, disoriented, then cocking his head as though listening to an inner voice. He ran away before I could stop him.
    The vision ended as abruptly as it began. I blinked, trying to figure out where I was. Kitchen. There was the table—I was looking up at it. I sprawled on the cold floor, clutching a chocolate-smeared paper towel. I got to my feet, stiff and sore all over, and looked at the open book. Not a speck of ice cream on it.
    I closed the cover. I tossed the paper towel in the trash. Then I put the lid back on the ice cream container and returned it to the freezer. Why is it that ice cream starts off looking like the solution to a problem and ends up feeling like nothing more than a big, queasy lump in your stomach?
    The book hadn’t shown me anything I didn’t already know. I’d killed Pryce’s shadow