Cursed (Demon Kissed #2) (6 page)

Her gray eyes were hesitant. “Ivy, do
you realize that you’re doing the exact thing that Collin tried to
prevent? It’s also exactly what Kreturus wants. If he gets hold of
you, you’ll have a lot more to fear than a demon kiss. And due to
the unique combination in your blood, I doubt he’ll rip out your
soul. No, whatever fate he has planned for you is far worse than
that. He’ll want you alive and whole. If I tell you where the
entrance is, you’ll be walking straight into his trap.”

“
Al, I know. I’ve thought
of that, but I can’t leave Collin there.” Remorse ripped through my
chest in an unrelenting wave. I blinked back the tears that wanted
to fall from my eyes. “I won’t throw away Collin’s sacrifice, but I
can’t abandon him either. Not if there is a way I can get to him.
Al, I only have to touch his hand and we’ll both be safe.” The plea
was very plainly written on my face.

Her old eyes locked on mine for a
moment. Despite her age, she and I seemed like we were cut from the
same cloth. Our ideals held us on our paths in life, whether they
were easy paths or not. “Since I suspect you’ll find a way in
eventually, I’ll tell you. But, you must realize that Kreturus is
no longer contained. He may move freely in his own domain. It’s
possible that he is still restricted to the pit he was buried in,
but I doubt it. Not after the visions you’ve had.

“
Ah Ivy. Your convictions
will be the death of you girl. Your passion will be your demise.
It’s written all over your face, and yet…I can’t deny that you’re
right. Such a loyal and courageous friend does not belong in the
Underworld.” She pressed her lips together tightly.

It was plain that she didn’t want me
to go, but she seemed to understand what was driving me to do it.
It wasn’t just puppy love. It was as she’d said, Collin didn’t
belong there.

“
There are several portals
into the Underworld,” she began. “They can be opened like you saw
the night we fought the Valefar. None of the entrances are in plain
sight. The Martis saw to that. And some entrances are safer than
others. The oldest portal is the one you want. It’s the least used
and you won’t find it discussed in any book. Only the Martis who
were there when it was sealed knew of its existence. When the
Martis left the Underworld, they marked the portal so they could
return, if needed.

“
This piece of knowledge
has been forgotten by Martis, but the Seyers made sure that there
were always two of us that knew. That way if something happened to
one of us, the other knew of its location. This information was
passed down from Seyer to Seyer.”

She knew! Shifting to the edge of my
seat, I couldn’t hide the excitement on my face. She knew where the
entrance to the Underworld was! She knew how to get in! But I
couldn’t tell if she was going to tell me. Her brow was creased, as
she stared at me in silence. If she told me, she would be one of
the cogs in the wheel that pushed me closer and closer to
fulfilling the prophecy. The thing was, I was going whether she
helped me or not. And she knew it. I just didn’t believe that I
would ever succumb to evil. It was so not me.

Finally Al said, “It’s in the
catacombs, Ivy. Read about them. As soon as you can, go and see
them. But, the one thing that you have to know is that the Guardian
that we posted to block the entrance will be worse than anything
you could possibly imagine. The living aren’t supposed to enter
Hell. Remember that.”

The catacombs were ancient tombs
beneath the city. Was it possible? Could I really just walk into
Hell through an old grave?

Excitement was bubbling inside of me.
“I just have to walk through a tomb and get past a guard?” I
asked.

Al’s old lips smirked,
“Not just any tomb; you have to find
thee
tomb. And there is no
just getting past
anything. You must defeat the Guardian to get through. I’m
sorry I can’t tell you exactly what it is. That information’s been
lost over the centuries.”

How hard could that be? It was one
guard. I’d battled horrifying things before, and I’d already seen
demons. I just had to kill it. I had no qualms killing demons. And
if the demon guard wouldn’t let me pass, I knew I could slash
through its scales without remorse.

“
Which tomb?” I
asked.

She shook her head. “They never told
me. I only know it’s in the Roman catacombs, and that the Martis
guarded the entrance, even though it’s been forgotten.”

Across the courtyard I saw Shannon
striding towards us, effectively killing our conversation. Her long
hair had a reddish gleam in the sunlight. It made her eyes glimmer
an intense green. She pulled up a chair and sat with us.

A smile spread across her face. “I’ve
got news.”

While I hadn’t really forgiven her for
the airport incident, she was still acting like my friend. She kept
me company, and barked at guards when they mistreated me. She’d
apologized and done everything to show me that she was sorry, but I
was still leery of her, although my distrust was fading. Often she
seemed to be on a personal mission to clear my name.

“
Spill,” I said, leaning
forward. She knew everything about the trial. If I couldn’t find
her, she was usually listening to the hearing. After several weeks,
I stopped asking for updates. It just enraged me.

Shannon was practically bouncing out
of her chair. Al regarded her with a concerned look, but said
nothing. “The court decided that the Tribunal couldn’t judge you
without a critical piece of testimony. That’s what was dragging
things out. Everything keeps coming back to whether or not Eric
sealed the portal to Hell. Some said he did—with the massive amount
of light he called. They have been debating whether or not it was
even possible for him to do that, and what the effects would be
with an orb that large.” She leaned forward, gripping the edge of
the table. “Basically, they only have you saying that you sealed
it. If you did seal it, they said they have no reason to fear you.
But, if Eric sealed it, your loyalties are more
questionable.”

Al asked, “They’re going to call him?”
Her eyes cut to me.

Shannon nodded. “Yes. They want Eric’s
testimony. Again. When they first took it, no one thought to ask
these things. Then Julia banished him to some Godforsaken place.
But the whole thing hinges on him now.”

“
Great,” my voice dripped
with disdain, as I dropped my cup. “My life is in the hands of the
guy who killed my sister; the guy who knew me and hated me the
instant he learned that demon blood flows through my
veins.”

I shot up from the chair and started
pacing. My arms folded tightly in front of me. The guards that
trailed me watched, but didn’t come closer. I had no privacy. I
could not react. They watched me and reported everything. When I
first arrived, I thought being transparent and not fighting the
guards would win me brownie points, but it did no such thing. I
fought to control myself, knowing they were watching.

Al’s voice was careful, “He has to
speak the truth, Ivy. You have nothing to worry about. He’ll
corroborate your testimony, and the Martis will have to release
you.”

Somehow I doubt the truth mattered
very much in this trial anymore. I turned to look at her. Breathing
deeply, I pulled my arms tighter to my chest. “I can’t stand the
thought of seeing him. I don’t know how someone so good could have
done something so evil. It makes me think I didn’t know him at
all.”

Maybe I didn’t. The Eric I knew would
have never killed my sister. He was kind and caring. He was so
careful to preserve life, which is why it made no sense that he
killed her. And, he was the only one who knew exactly what happened
to her. Half of me wanted the details of Apryl’s death, while the
other half was too afraid to ask.

Al was watching me carefully. She had
a sixth sense and could tell what was going through my mind. “I
know that you’re having trouble accepting what I saw in my vision,”
she said, “but Eric didn’t kill Apryl. Ivy, you should speak to him
when he’s here. I don’t think he led you to believe the truth in
this case. And I have no idea why he took the blame.”

I shook my head, not wanting to talk
about it. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” I looked at the guards,
signaling that I was leaving. Turning back to Al and Shannon, I
said, “I’m going for a walk.”

Al had an odd expression on her face.
She said, “Do that. Do that and while you’re walking think about
how you can believe and forgive one friend, but not
another.”

I spun on my heel, turning to her. Her
words felt like a slap across the face. “What? What are you talking
about? Who did I forgive for murder?”

She smiled up at me patiently, “You
really need me to answer that? You already know who it is. And you
forgave him. Completely.”

“
It’s not the same,” I
rounded on her. “Collin was a slave. He was forced to do the things
that he did. And if he killed Apryl, I wouldn’t forgive him
either!” I stormed away.

CHAPTER NINE

My Martis guards silently kept up with
me, no doubt adding violent mood swings to their endless list of
stuff that was wrong with me. Everyone knew the girl with the
purple mark was deadly. Everyone held the same prejudice that Eric
had uttered to me so many months ago—demon blood is vile. It is
among the most dirty and dangerous things a Martis can encounter.
Valefar have demon blood. It’s what gave them life after their soul
had been stripped clean from their body.

But that wasn’t the case with me. I
had been Martis before I was turned. A Valefar nearly killed me,
but Collin saved me. Valefar’s aren’t supposed to have souls, but
he did. Collin managed to hang onto a piece of his. It was too
small to make him anything but Valefar, but shared with the
miniscule amount of soul left in my body, following the attack, it
was enough to sustain my life. Together, with the demon blood
Collin gave me, I didn’t die. I didn’t turn Valefar either, but I
was tainted. Now, I was neither Martis nor Valefar. I belonged to
no one. And the result was a marriage of powers, both Martis and
Valefar, into a new type of immortal with a new mark. The
discolored swirl on my forehead reminded me that I didn’t belong,
as if I could forget it in this place. No one stayed around me
unless they were forced to. I hated it here, and wanted nothing
more than to leave.

After silently fuming, I lapped the
building to work off some of the tension that threatened to erupt
on the next person I encountered. There were two-faced Martis mixed
among the people who resided in this place. On a daily basis, I
dealt with them, ignoring their looks. They smiled as they passed
me, but I could see in their eyes that they held the same horror of
me that the more transparent folks had plastered across their
faces. Al was the only one that I was certain was on my
side.

Even Shannon was a question mark. She
had been my best friend since birth, but I never forgot what she
said to me in the old church on Long Island. She’d kill me when I
became the evil one foretold in the prophecy. Until then, she was
trying to keep me from that path. As far as I could tell, I wasn’t
on it. I didn’t choose what happened to me. It was all fate. I had
no control over anything. I was in the wrong place at the wrong
time; which was a classic Ivy occurrence, but on a larger scale.
Now instead of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and
walking into a bully, I would be walking into Hell. Maybe I did
bring things on myself.

Irritation shot through me. I had to
go see if I could find the entrance into the Underworld that Al
told me about. It was my ticket out of this place. And it pained me
horribly to feel so damn helpless. Collin had been gone for three
months. Three months! Meanwhile, I’d been up here finding nothing.
Now that I knew what to look for, I hoped it wouldn’t be much
longer. He needed me. I abruptly turned around and headed toward
the archives.

I was so close to finding what I
needed. Now I knew the location. The entrance was somewhere in the
tombs. I just had to find the correct location and figure out how
to access get inside. As I walked down the hall, like I’d done so
many times before, I shoved my hands in my pockets. If I
encountered a Martis while walking, the guard would close in on me,
reminding me that I was a prisoner, and also showing the Martis
that they were safe from me. It was a joke really, because they
hadn’t taken my ruby ring away. They had no idea I channeled my
powers through it. I could leave whenever I wanted—efanotate
away—and they’d have no clue how I escaped.

Leaving this place was beyond tempting
but there were two things here that I had to have before I could
depart, the location of the entrance, and Apryl’s Celestial Silver
comb. The Martis took it from me when I arrived, which was rather
pointless since I couldn’t kill them with it. They said it was
theirs, for a Martis warrior, which I was not. I hadn’t seen it
since, but there was no way I was leaving without it. As soon as I
gleaned the information I needed from the archives, I’d find my
comb, and get out of this place.