With the butterflies going nutso in my stomach, I took a deep breath, then pushed Valdis through. Her flames crawled away from the touch of the magic, dancing across her hilt, then my hand, before finally extinguishing as I went in after her. As had been the case the last time we’d gone through one of these concealed doorways, it felt like I was crawling through molasses. The magic creating the illusion was thick and syrupy, and its cold tendrils clung to my body, resisting my movements, then releasing me with an odd sucking sound. I shuddered, my skin crawling with horror as I continued to force my way through.
But unlike before, there was no wider tunnel to provide relief. The cold, foul magic played around me, resisting my movements, tearing at my strength and will as I moved deeper into the underground darkness.
Then, with a suddenness that forced a yelp from my throat, the ground gave way and I was
falling.
Chapter 12
I landed on my back with a grunt of pain, the sound echoing as I scrambled to my feet. The room in which I’d landed smelled of wet earth and foul magic, and it was so filled with shadows that the light from the candles forming a large circle around me barely made an impact.
I couldn’t see but I didn’t care. Azriel was here. The connection we shared flared to life, bright and fierce, even if somewhat constrained. I couldn’t hear him—whatever magic caged him obviously restricted our ability to communicate—but given the circumstances, that was probably a good thing. He’d no doubt be furious about me walking—or, more accurately, falling—into Lauren’s trap.
Fire rippled down Valdis’s sides, lilac flames that briefly glowed a fierce and bloody red. Her steel quivered in my grip and tugged lightly to the left, as if eager to be free and moving. But until I knew for certain where both Azriel and Lauren were, I couldn’t release her. Our demon swords might be able to move of their own will, but I didn’t need Lauren realizing that.
“Well, well, well,” an all-too-familiar voice said. “Look what the trap just dropped into our laps.”
I swung around, Valdis raised high. Her lilac flames burned through the shadows and revealed the evil that hid beneath them.
Lauren stood twenty feet away. She was a tall,
full-bodied—almost matronly—woman, with angular features and dark hair cut close to her head. Her nose was large and Roman, and it gave her an arrogant air. But it was her eyes that sent shivers skating across my skin. It wasn’t so much that they were a blue so pale it was almost impossible to separate the iris from the white, but that, in this place, they glowed with a fire that was cold, cruel, and very definitely otherworldly.
But then, this was a woman who had willingly handed herself into the hands of hell—and then walked free.
“I have to say,” she drawled, voice coolly amused, “while I did not really expect you to be so foolish as to step into the transport stones, I certainly
wasn’t
expecting your capture to be this easy
or
this fast.”
“It was only easy because I wished it to be,” I said. “Where’s Azriel?”
She raised an eyebrow and made a slight motion with her hand. In the shadows that lingered to the left of where I stood, torches appeared, their flames a bright and unnatural blue.
Azriel was caged. Literally.
It was a metal structure that resembled a fancy birdcage, but the steel was silver and glowed with an unhealthy green-yellow light. At the top of the cage there was an odd sort of haze that swirled in a lazy circle and, every now and again, sent a pulse of brown down the metal. Even from where I stood, the foulness of those pulses was evident.
Azriel sat crossed-legged in the middle of the cage’s base. He looked very relaxed, almost serene. But then, he
was
a master of concealing his thoughts and emotions, and I knew him well enough now to understand that the blanker his expression, the more he was trying to conceal.
In this case, he was furious. Murderously so.
At me, as much as at Lauren.
I switched Valdis from my right hand to my left and
saw his gaze narrow slightly. Tension, anger, and perhaps a glimmer of understanding briefly rolled through the connection between us, but the brown haze pulsed and the connection was shut down again.
I frowned and returned my gaze to our sorceress. “What do you want, Lauren?” I hesitated, then added, “Or should that be Mike? Or even Harriet? What name do you
actually
prefer?”
She raised an eyebrow. “You can call me whatever you wish. I don’t care, because none of those names are mine.”
“So what
is
your name? And do you actually own a face of your own? Or has it been so long since you’ve worn it that you’ve forgotten?”
“I forget
nothing
.”
As she spoke, her skin began to ripple and move, rather resembling putty that was being pushed and prodded and remolded by invisible hands. Even though I was a face shifter myself, even though I’d seen Mom transform more than once, there was something quite revolting about the way Lauren shifted. When she’d finished, the woman who stood in front of me had thickset, almost manly shoulders, a thin face still dominated by a large, almost regal-looking nose, and short, colorless hair. It wasn’t white, wasn’t gray, wasn’t anything, really. Much the same could be said of her skin. It was almost as if she were an unwashed canvas, waiting for the arrival of paint. Even her eyes held so little in the way of color that her pupils seemed to be drowning in a sea of white.
I couldn’t help the shudder that ran through me, and a thin, humorless smile touched her lips. The shift magic crawled across her body again and, after a few moments, it was Mike who stood in front of me.
“Does this form make you feel more at ease?” he said, his voice almost mocking. “It is certainly the one with which I am most familiar these days, given the length of time I have held it.”
Amaya began to hiss, the sound fierce and angry as it echoed from my lips. I clenched my fingers against Valdis’s hilt and resisted the urge to throw her at the mocking figure in front of me.
Kill must,
Amaya muttered.
Taste her we will.
Yeah, but first we have to find out what sort of circle surrounds us,
I snapped back.
So behave yourself until we actually
can
attack her. We don’t need to tip her off that all is not as it seems.
Her muttering continued, the sound echoing through my mind. But she didn’t attempt to wrest control from me and, for the moment, seemed content to do as I asked.
“Actually,” I said. “Your current form does nothing more than increase my rage. I
will
kill you for all your years of deceit, you know. Mom deserved better than that.”
He laughed. The familiar sound itched at my skin and only made the determination to kill him stronger. “Your mother was a means to an end. And, may I point out, a jolly good fuck.”
My grip on Valdis became so tight my knuckles practically glowed. He laughed again. “Go on, throw it. You know you want to.”
“Actually,” I somehow managed to reply, “what I want is to thrust my hand into your chest, to watch the fear grow on your face as my fingers wrap around your heart, and then squeeze tight. I want to watch the pain grow, I want to taste your fear, and I want to watch the life bleed from your body. And then I want to rest content in the knowledge that you will never move on and never be reborn.”
He raised an eyebrow, expression still mocking. “It is always good to have ambitions, even if you will never see them come to fruition.”
He made a flicking motion with his hand, and the candles surrounding me shivered and danced. Magic settled
around me, thick and cloak heavy. My knees buckled briefly under its weight, but I locked them tight and remained upright.
His gaze narrowed slightly. “Release the sword, Risa.”
My grip on Valdis tightened. I actually did
want
to release her, because until I did, she couldn’t make her way toward Azriel. But I also couldn’t seem too eager.
“Go fuck yourself, Mike.”
He made another motion with his hand. “Release the sword.
Now.
”
The weight of the magic increased. This time, I allowed my knees to buckle. They hit the cavern’s stone floor hard, and pain slithered through me—something I was more aware of than truly felt.
“Sorry, but my previous response still applies,” I said through gritted teeth.
“This stubbornness obviously comes from your father. Your mother was certainly far more pliable.”
My mother had
trusted
him—and for that alone I would kill him. But I held the words back and kept my spine straight against the continuing force of magic.
He made another motion with his hand. “Release it.”
I made a show of fighting the order—although it
wasn’t
all show. The magic was so damn heavy it felt like a ton of bricks was settling around my shoulders. My muscles were screaming and sweat poured down my face and bowing spine.
Enough was enough.
I flung Valdis toward Azriel as hard as I could. She landed on the stone halfway between me and him and slid several feet closer.
“Well done,” Mike said, his voice losing its edge of command. “Although if you have any hopes of the reaper being able to reach your weapon, I can assure you that will
not
be the case. His cage is, I’m afraid, rather more than it seems.”
I licked my lips, my body still quivering under the weight of the magic. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning, it has been specifically designed with dark angels in mind. The steel contains him, and the mist drains him.” His smile was edged with satisfaction. “He will die, slowly but surely, unless you do precisely what I ask.”
Which explained the bouts of dizziness I’d been getting. It wasn’t the lack of food; it was Azriel drawing on my strength. I glanced at him, suddenly worried. We might not be able to communicate, but he obviously sensed my concern and minutely shook his head. He was okay for the moment. Relief flooded me.
I took a deep, quivery breath and returned my attention to our sorceress. “Trouble is, he’s going to die even
if
I do what you want. Or do you honestly expect me to believe you’re going to leave either of us alive once you have the final key?”
“Oh, I have no intention of killing you, my dear. I did, after all, promise your mother to look after you, and I do actually prefer to keep my promises if it’s at all possible. It’s bad karma to do otherwise.”
I snorted softly. “I think you’re well past the point of worrying about karma.”
“That is more than possible, given once I have the final key in my possession, the kingdom of hell is mine to fully control. Karma will be of little concern once
that
happens.”
“If you think karma and the fates will idly sit back and watch you destroy two worlds,” Azriel said, his voice as flat as his expression, and all the more scary because of it. Or it would be to the sane, and I had a suspicion Lauren or Mike or whatever the hell his/her real name was had passed that point long ago. “Then you have very little understanding of the forces you seek to control.”
Mike glanced at him. “Given the lack of intervention
by either party so far, I think I’m justified in believing they no longer care what happens in my world or yours.”
“And in that, you’d also be wrong,” I said, drawing his attention back to me. The last thing we needed right now was him noticing that Valdis had slid several feet closer to the cage that bound Azriel. “But
that
is beside the point. If you don’t intend to kill us, what do you intend? Because we both know that only death will put an end to our attempts to stop you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, death is your outcome; have no doubt of that. But it will not come from my hand—not directly. Rather, the magic of this place will restrain and drain you both, until there is nothing left of either of you but memories and regret.”
I suspected it wouldn’t take us all that long to reach that point—not if the cold cruelty in his eyes was anything to go by. God, why hadn’t I seen what this man truly was before now?
Why hadn’t Mom?
It was a question I was never going to get an answer to. Mom had moved on and, in many ways, that was precisely what I had to do. There was no point in dwelling on what-ifs; all that mattered now was stopping this bastard.
“But we have not reached that point yet,” he continued. “We have a key to find first.”
“Sorry, but there’s nothing you can say or do that will make me hand that damn key over to you when I get it.”
“And that is where you are yet again wrong.” He walked toward me, his strides long and assured. “Just as Lucian taught me how to cage and kill a dark angel, so, too, did he teach me how to control the mind of someone like you.”
Lucian.
It seemed we were never going to be free of that bastard’s shadow. “I blew him to little tiny pieces, you know. I fully intend to do the same to you.”
Mike laughed, but it was a short, sharp sound of anger. “Oh, I know very well what you did to him. It is only the promise to your mother that controls the dark urge to inflict the same on you.”
So he was more than happy to destroy two worlds in his attempt for domination of all, but unwilling to break something as fragile as a promise? How in hell did that make any sense? It didn’t, at least to the sane mind—and that
wasn’t
what we were dealing with here.
He stopped directly in front of me. Only two feet and the weight of the magic separated us, but it might as well have been a mile. I could barely move, let alone do so with any sort of speed. And even if I could, there was still the circle of candles to contend with. It was undoubtedly some form of barrier—he wouldn’t be standing so confidently close otherwise—and until it was down, I had no choice but to bide my time.
Waiting,
Amaya growled.
Sucks.
Amusement ran through me, but it quickly died as Mike raised his hands. Power surged across the night and the candles shivered in response. A heartbeat later, a muddy yellow arc of lightning shot from one candle to the next, until all of them were connected by that thin sliver.