Artan saw two of the techs blush at the comment and knew that every pimple-faced, hoodie-wearing, caffeine–chugging male computer analyst in this bus had a crush on her. And who could blame them? Nyssa was impressive in more ways than one. Even he couldn’t deny feeling a certain level of attraction for her, but it was fleeting. His heart belonged to Rhianna. He would do anything to get her back from Necron. She would be safe as long as the wizard needed her, but what would happen to her once Necron got what he was he looking for?
One thing was for certain: Time was running out.
All Artan could do was pray they’d find the third grimoire before Necron did.
C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN
RHIANNA INHALED A pleasantly musky scent and gazed up at the man carrying her in his muscular arms. Artan smiled back at her with a twinkle in his eyes, his long hair perfectly framing his square face. She smiled as she realized her lover was whisking her into their waiting bedroom. Way too much time had passed since they last made love.
As Artan gently lowered her onto the bed, Rhianna shivered in anticipation. She was ready for his touch. Nevertheless, she couldn’t fully relax. A strange sense of foreboding, an irrational feeling that something wasn’t quite right, kept tugging at her awareness. Why couldn’t she let go and be in the moment?
Artan’s strong body leaned into her, and Rhianna pushed all her misgivings aside. Why ruin a perfect moment with silly thoughts? She needed this. For a moment there was only the sensation of his lips, the feeling of stubble brushing against her cheeks, the promise of what was to come. She closed her eyes and surrendered herself to the experience.
When she opened them again, her body stiffened in shock. There was someone else in the room.
The mage in the black suit was lurking at the foot of the bed. His reptilian gaze was chilling in its intensity, a predator ready to strike.
Seeing the sinister figure broke the power of the moment, and the memories of the magical attack at the museum flooded her mind. She recalled the mage touching her shoulder, the world turning black….
Rhianna shifted her gaze toward Artan, hoping he might offer an explanation. She recoiled in animal terror as a monstrous mask peered back her. Her lover was gone, replaced by the gargoyle. She scrambled away from the salivating beast, arms and legs flailing madly. In the process, she slipped off the mattress and fell onto a rough-hewn stone floor. Before she knew what was happening, strong hands seized her prone form and lifted her into the air. No longer was she in her bedroom. Torches painted a cave-like chamber with bloody shadows, her bed replaced by an altar pockmarked by black splotches.
Dried blood. The altar from her vision.
Her eyes flicked back and forth, her heartbeat quickening. If her vision was right, she was about to be sacrificed. Some of the men who’d grabbed her swayed in evil prayer while the others pinned her down on the altar, the rough stone digging into her back, hinting at the agony to come. She gasped for air as she struggled desperately against her captors. She cried out, begged them to stop. Her pleas were met with soulless indifference. No emotion registered in the cultists’ stoic faces. From the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of light gleaming along a raised knife.
Rhianna’s lips parted, voice rising in a shrill scream as the sacrificial dagger came down on her.
***
Rhianna’s cry for mercy echoed across an abandoned subway platform. She gasped, sucking in a lungful of air. The nightmare had felt so real.
She studied the lone subway car parked on the tracks and immediately recognized the station as the legendary Manchester Line from her vision. Was she experiencing another psychic flash, or had the man in black actually brought her here? Taking in her surroundings more carefully, she decided the second possibility made the most sense. The station had the solid patina of reality.
Gingerly, she took a few steps, leaving footprints behind in the dust-caked floor. To some, the Manchester Line was an urban legend but Rhianna knew better. Many famous men throughout American history had made use of the private subway station. When the Manchester Hotel was built in the 1920s, it had come with its own private subway station and car, to be used by the super-rich who frequented the place. The exclusive station remained active all the way into the seventies, until the fortunes of the Manchester family changed and the hotel was shuttered.
Rhianna would’ve thought the stories to be made up if it hadn’t been for her father. She’d only been a little girl when her dad snuck her into the decaying hotel and whisked her into the secret elevator that led to the abandoned platform. He wanted to prove to her that some myths were true and that the city she called home was filled with secrets. There were hidden worlds out there ready to be explored by those adventurous enough to look past the surface.
Setting foot in the cobwebbed station, though it was a shadow of its former glory, had filled young Rhianna with awe and instilled a healthy respect for the power of history. At the time, she had wondered if this was how the early Egyptologists felt when they first set foot into the pyramids. The forgotten subway station served as a sharp reminder that time stood still for no one, neither rich nor poor.
The station looked exactly the way she remembered it. She recalled the message she’d scrawled in blood across the floor of the medieval exhibit. It had not been a conscious act, more of a form of automatic writing triggered by the images rushing through her mind. Hopefully Artan would be able to decipher the clue.
The ancient subway car parked at the station hummed to life, interrupting her thoughts. Brilliant headlights chased away the shadows, beckoning her to come closer. The sound of the car’s engine felt out of place in the tomblike space.
Rhianna took a hesitant step toward the car. As she drew near, she became convinced that she wasn’t alone any longer. Somebody was watching her—and she had a good idea who it might be.
Anger masked her fear as she spoke. “I’m tired of your games. I don’t know who you are, but you better show yourself.”
“Or what?”
The man in black peeled from the shadows. Rhianna let out a startled cry and jumped back.
“Idle threats don’t impress me. I would have thought living with a monster would make you embrace the darkness. Yet you run into the light like everyone else.”
“What do you want from me? Who are you?”
You can call me Necron,
a silky voice whispered in her head. She could feel the man’s presence in her mind, a foreign parasite tainting her thoughts with darkness. Were there any limits to his powers? Had Necron probed her memories perhaps, gaining access to her vision of the Manchester Line? Is that how he knew to bring her to this forsaken station hundreds of feet below the earth? And had he perhaps conjured the bedroom nightmare too? She wondered with growing anxiety if this moment might be a continuation of the nightmare.
Is any of this real?
Necron responded to the mental question, this time using his voice. “What is reality but a collection of smoke and mirrors to keep us from asking those questions to which we don’t want the answers? A house of cards meant to distract us from the inevitability of our own mortality. There’s only one absolute truth in this world: Everything that lives must die. Rich or poor, good or bad, death awaits us all. The solution isn’t to fear it but to embrace the inevitable. And by doing so, you conquer man’s greatest fear and learn to control its power.”
The words were those of a madman. A madman who could read thoughts and cast spells.
“What do you want from me?” Rhianna asked, doing her best to control her fear.
“Answers, my dear. The grimoire spoke to you, and I want to know the secrets it whispered in your ears.”
Rhianna was beginning to understand. The visions were clues, guideposts pointing toward the missing third book. Pointing them toward the underground temple…
A smile curled Necron’s lips. “I see you’re beginning to understand. Very good.”
“What are you going to do with that book?”
“Change the world.” His chilling smile held a horrific promise. “Come now, it’s time we made our way to the temple.”
The fact that Necron knew about the temple made her wonder if he had scanned her mind for this information or if the grimoire had spoken to him too.
How do you expect to find the temple
? Rhianna wondered.
“The dead will guide us,” Necron said, responding to her thought. Every time the mage probed her mind, it felt like cold, clammy fingers brushing through her memories, the sense of violation absolute. “Restless spirits haunt these tunnels. The suicides, the homeless, the lost and the broken. The damned souls who crawled into the bowels of this city never to be seen again. They linger, unable to move on, but they’re more than willing to tell their stories. They will show us the way.”
It was all coming together in Rhianna’s mind. A cabal of super-wealthy occultists had been the custodians of the two grimoires Necron was after. Archer’s great-great grandfather must’ve been one of them, which would explain why the second book had been hidden in the iron maiden his descendant had loaned to the museum.
The mere thought of the privileged elite dragging down their hapless victims into the city’s catacombs sickened Rhianna. Down here these monsters would board a private subway car— the ultimate symbol of their elevated status—that would take them to their infernal place of worship. And what for? Why shed innocent blood when they already possessed everything? Maybe this world deserved to be conquered by men such as Cael or Necron.
Rhianna choked back her physical revulsion and stepped into the subway car. Resistance was useless. For the time being she had to play along and give Necron what he wanted.
Unlike the perfectly maintained train from her vision, this subway car had seen better days. Time had taken its toll. The walls were cracked, the gilded handlebars blackened. A thick layer of dust caked the armchairs and couches. She stifled a cough, the stale air raking her lungs.
The doors slid shut. Necron’s gaze remained riveted on her as the train vibrated and started to move. As the tunnel rushed past the windows, Rhianna caught sight of a bony man watching them from the tracks outside. Black eyes glared back at her from a demented face.
The dead will show us the way.
Could the spectral figure really be a ghost?
The question quickened her pulse, her fear metastasizing. Her sparring lessons with Artan seemed laughable now. Fancy swordplay wouldn’t impress a man who could control the dead or be enough to stop his mad plans of conquests. She was lost, at the mercy of powers beyond her understanding.
Her mind cycled back to the museum. Thinking about the woman with the magical whip offered a tiny glimmer of hope. Artan had somehow been turned back into a gargoyle and had fought side by side with the woman. Who was she? What had transpired over the last twenty-four hours during which her lover had gone missing? She had no doubt Artan would move mountains to find her, but could he do it before Necron decided she no longer served any purpose to him? Her only ace was the message she’d left behind at the MET. She prayed with all her heart that Artan would be able to make sense of her cryptic words and find her in time.
With these thoughts haunting her, she studied the dark track ahead. Her breath lodged in her throat as she spotted another ghostly figure lurking in the middle of the tracks. A heartbeat later, the train barreled into the pale-skinned woman, and she vanished from view.
A chill rippled down Rhianna’s spine. The temperature must’ve dropped at least ten degrees. Sensing movement behind her, she whirled. The same eerie woman who’d vanished under the train now loomed before her. Bloodhsot eyes leered back at her from a bashed-in skull. The woman wore a torn leather jacket over a gray hoodie. As her skeletal phantom hand reached out, Rhianna let out a piercing scream.
C
HAPTER
T
WELVE
ARTAN CHANGED INTO the clothes Nyssa had handed him. Once dressed, he slipped on a layer of Kevlar body armor. A series of magical glyphs adorned the vest, supposedly offering protection against black magic. Much good it had done against Necron’s attacks. A studded belt crossed his massive chest, holding fast his scabbard behind his powerful right shoulder. As a final touch, he donned a black trench coat, which would allow him to move among civilians without drawing undue attention. Regarding his reflection in the changing room’s mirror, he found he looked identical to the other hunters under Nyssa’s command but for one crucial difference—a demon resided within this monster hunter.
Artan buttoned up the coat and stepped out of the changing room. The computer team was busy monitoring the bank. Data and images slashed across the screens as they probed the mystery of Rhianna’s cryptic message.
“Did you learn anything new?” Artan asked Nyssa in a sober voice. “Did any of your men make it out of the museum alive?”
“Some of them were taken to the hospital. The Order will make sure they’re taken care of.”
Artan wondered how far the power of this ancient organization of monster hunters reached.
“We also received word that one of our hunters managed to elude the guards and is on his way to us.”
“I’m glad to hear that. What have you been able this find out about this Manchester Line?”
Nyssa pointed at one of the terminals, where an image of a desolate subway station was displayed. A lone car was parked in the station. Nyssa quickly brought Artan up to speed about the history of the hotel and its underground station.