They would be waiting for him to make a move and the brief flash of the interior light of the car would be enough of a signal. If not, one or the other of them would contact Asmodeus or Gabriel – as they were the only two who could communicate with all the Daemonae – and either would have contacted Ash.
“Ready?” Ash asked.
Miri nodded.
He could sense her apprehension but also her resolution. Pride moved through him. She had courage, but he already knew that.
While Miri couldn’t see as well as Ash could, she wasn’t completely blind, she’d grown up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The starlit darkness, with the aid of the distant lights of the highway, helped illuminate their passage through the field.
Nearly silently, staying low as much as possible, finding what little cover they could in a stretch of decaying wooden fence, they made their way toward the darkened building where Gordon Templeton had once held Asmodeus and Gabriel prisoner.
There was no outward sign of disturbance, no visible sign of a presence or presences. Not a light glimmered, not a soul moved, inside or out.
It was as dark as a tomb.
Ash didn’t trust it.
The front doors were clearly out. It was unlikely they were unlocked. Made of thick glass, Ash had no doubt he could shatter them one way or another but the noise would be more than enough to alert anyone that there were intruders.
Keeping his senses alert, Ash scanned the entrance to the underground garage.
Nothing.
His tail constantly touched Miri, leaving his hands free while still reassuring himself of her presence beside him, close enough for him to sweep her out of danger if need be.
He could sense nothing to alarm him and yet he was alarmed. His skin prickled. Something made him uneasy, yet there was no sign of a presence or presences.
There should have been something. Templeton would have covered all his bases. He hadn’t gotten where he was by not doing so. Given the state of the building, though? Outwardly it was undamaged. Inwardly?
Even so, they couldn’t stop, they had to get the Book. About that there was no question. Ash wouldn’t allow another of his brothers to be spelled away, to suffer as he or Asmodeus had.
Miri looked at him questioningly. With his enhanced eyesight, he could see her clearly in the starlight.
Looking back at her, he shrugged, frowned a little and shook his head. He took a breath, then summoned Ba’al and Mal with a gesture, wishing – not for the first time – that he had ‘Deus’s ability to speak to all the Daemonae. But he didn’t.
He knew they were close. He called mentally to his Prince. “’Deus, I need Ba’al and Mal.”
Both arrived beside him almost silently.
He didn’t like it. In fact, he hated it. The original plan had been to have both Ba’al and Mal in reserve, especially Mal, the one member of the team who could escape undetected but now they had no choice.
“Ba’al, stay here as originally planned. Mal,” he said, “scout ahead.”
With a nod, Mal faded from view.
All they could do then was wait.
Frowning, Ash considered it.
There was no outcry. No sense of alarm came from either Asmodeus or Gabriel.
As if born of the moonlight, Mal reappeared, keeping low as he moved toward them.
“There are several levels to the garage,” he said, “but no vehicles anywhere. I didn’t try any of the doors, I didn’t want to trigger an alarm.”
If they could get in and out quickly enough, an alarm might not matter. Templeton would be able to get his people there in time. This time Templeton wouldn’t be facing just one Daemonae, but three, if there were guards, he, Ba’al and Mal should be able to defeat them.
“Miri?”
It had been itching at her, some disturbance as much sensed as felt. It could simply be their presence or the breach in the ethereal realms by the explosion. Her clairvoyance was useless, there were just too many possibilities, to many possible outcomes.
Miri looked at him helplessly. “There’s something, a disturbance in the planes…but I can’t tell what it is.”
There was no choice.
“Mal, scout ahead of us,” Ash said, “Ba’al, cover us from the rear.”
With a nod, Mal faded into darkness.
Reluctantly, Ash moved into the shadowed cavern of the underground parking garage, the only other entry beside the front doors, Miri beside him.
It was empty and might have echoed except they all wore soft-soled shoes – Miri’s borrowed from Gabriel. They were the only thing of Gabriel’s that fit.
This was true dark, pitch dark, except for the slight glimmer of Ash’s eyes. He’d toned the glow of his eyes but it was no good to her when he looked away. That and the touch of his tail were all that kept her oriented in the stygian darkness. If it weren’t for that Miri wouldn’t have had a clue where to go or how to get there.
As dark as it was even Ash had trouble seeing and he was wary of that, of anything that diminished his senses. Still not the slightest sound broke the darkness. He had no sense of a presence or presences, which was disconcerting in itself. He’d expected at least a guard. Something. It seemed unlikely Templeton had left the building, even empty, completely unprotected.
Resolutely, he turned them toward one of the entrances to the building itself. Each level had a small vestibule, with elevators in the center and stairs that went up and down to each side.
Only the emergency lights were on, casting an uncertain light between the support pillars and ramps. Intended only to light one's way out, they did little to light the way to the central core of the building.
Scanning around him, frowning, uneasy, Ash could find no reason for his nerves but his instincts shouted at him. Something was wrong. His jaw tightened as they entered the sheltered space.
Where was Mal?
Concerned, he sought mentally for Asmodeus.
As he reached for the door he heard it.
The sound was small, a soft foompf and then a tinkling, metal on stone or cement.
Instinct drove him.
He spun and swept Miri up in his arms as something struck the floor, bounced toward them, spewing smoke.
“Mal, run!”
The smoke billowed around them, swallowed them up even as Ash tried to get them away. He held his breath but it was far too late. In his arms Miri went limp. The dizziness hit him a second later and he staggered. Fear for his mate, for his people, nearly defeated the smoke, drove him forward another few steps.
It was a trap uniquely designed for Daemonae, distant, with no sights, sounds or smells to alert him.
He had a moment to send his alarm to Asmodeus but he was unconscious before he knew whether it reached his Prince, curling his body instinctually around Miri to protect her as they fell.
A hand wrapped in Miri’s hair, wrenched her head up and shook it viciously as it wrenched her up. Sick, dizzy and bewildered she blindly scrabbled for anything remotely familiar, her house in North Carolina, her University office, and Ash. Always Ash.
She tried desperately to open her eyes, to understand what had happened as her hands closed around the wrists of whoever held her hair because it hurt to be held like that, it hurt a lot. Something chinked and clinked, a dull oddly metallic sound. Her hands couldn’t separate. She couldn’t keep her balance against the relentless grip that brought tears to her eyes even as she struggled to her knees.
Ash! Alarm shot through her. She couldn’t feel him. Where was he? Something had happened. Something terrible.
“Look,” a hard voice demanded, sharply.
The voice was cold, cruel, the tone harsh.
He gave her head another shake.
Memory returned in a rush.
The parking garage. An odd noise and smoke spewing. Some kind of gas.
In shock and confusion, she opened her eyes.
The enormous chamber was dark, deeply shadowed, with a fractured, vaulted ceiling that had once arched upward to disappear into uneasy darkness. Whirring gas lanterns cast uncertain shadows. There was the oppressive feeling of something that hung precariously high above them. Cantilevered pieces of the ceiling had fallen to the floor to teeter precariously against what had once been something like a grandstand or an amphitheater, yet they were clearly underground. She could almost hear the stone as it ground against itself, it almost seemed to groan.
It was damp and chill. Somewhere among the cracked walls water had seeped in. The walls were covered with patches of mold. The air smelled musty.
At the very corners of her eyes, at edge of her peripheral vision, things moved and whispered through the shadows, half-seen half unseen things that made her skin crawl. Terrifying things. Unnatural things. Things that didn’t belong on this temporal plane.
It was a haunted place.
The walls between the worlds were very thin here, the ethereal realms very close. It would be so easy, too easy, to open them in this place, among these crawling shadows.
Fear shivered over his skin, a quick frisson of goose bumps.
“Look, damn it,” a bitter voice snapped and shook her head again.
She knew that voice. Hammond.
Terror shot through her.
Another light flared, focused on the center of the room and Miri cried out in denial at what she saw there. Who she saw there. Her heart shattered as tears sprang to her eyes. She shook her head in pain and sorrow.
Her eyes burned with tears she dared not shed. She wanted to cry out and pressed her knuckles against her lips so she wouldn’t and therefore betray him.
“Oh, Ash,” she whispered, seeing his worst nightmare made real.
There were chains on him, on Ash, as there had been in her visions of him from that time once long ago.
Iron chains on his wrists that secured him to a metal frame so he hung loosely from them, others around his ankles. One chain lead to a heavy bolt embedded in the black marble floor. They’d stripped him, leaving him naked. Exposed him.
Stunned, she fought tears, grief.
Whatever they’d planned, whatever Ash had anticipated, it hadn’t been this. They hadn’t counted on the gas. Some part of them had accepted they might be captured but not this.
Not this.
“Oh, dear God,” she breathed.
It felt as if someone had poured acid where her heart was, the pain of it seared, seeing what they’d done to him.
“Ash.”
His brilliant, beautiful golden eyes were half closed, his magnificent body lax within the frame but even as she watched he stirred, his muscles twitched as the gas wore off. Awareness was only seconds away.
The hand in her hair released her.
She wanted to weep.
All she could see was Ash.
He couldn’t awaken that way. He couldn’t awaken in chains. Not alone.
Miri threw herself forward to try to reach him. She came up short and hard, jerked completely off her feet.