There came a wolfish howl. She leapt to her feet as another hellhound sprinted toward her—but this one had a person upon its back. The rider wore a hide like a coat and waved a sword.
Reaching into her quiver, she shot two arrows into the hound’s face. The hellhound dropped, pawing the arrows, and its rider tumbled over its head. He brandished the sword as he bounded up again.
It was Joey.
Emily stared as if he were from a dream. She was aware of three things—the sound of battle between the centaurs and the mob had waned, so her diversion was ending. She had only six more arrows in her quiver. And she was no longer afraid of Joey Mastrianni.
Swinging the sword before him, Joey walked toward her. He wore a maniacal grin. His sword glinted orange with firelight. “I was told to bring you in, but nothing was said about your arms and legs.”
She shot an arrow at him. He deflected it with the gleaming sword. But in the process, he turned sideways. A second arrow found his ribs. He cursed and grimaced but did not fall. When he swung the sword again, his movement was restricted.
Perfect placement. He’d bump the arrow every time he moved his right arm.
“Have you found your grandmother yet?” Joey shouted. “Sweet little old lady.”
“Bastard,” Emily said.
“Oh, I forgot. You aren’t looking for Grandma. You want your little girl.”
“Where is she?”
“In the castle. Has her own suite. Visitors at all hours. She loves it, of course. They grow up so fast.”
“Damn you.”
Emily put an arrow into his thigh, and he fell. She ran to the hellhound and grabbed one of the arrows sticking out of its face, yanking it out as she leapt over the body.
She thought the dog was dead, but it was not. It swiped at her with its massive paw and stood with the remaining arrow still in its eye socket. It was too close to shoot again, so Emily took out the caretaker wand. She jabbed the dog in the chest.
The hellhound shrieked. Light streamed from its open mouth. A wave of sparks traveled its body, disintegrating it.
Unfortunately, the bone arrow also turned to dust. Emily gawped in dismay.
Leaning on his sword, Joey gained his feet.
She faced him, wand out. “Where is my daughter?”
“You killed them. You actually killed them both,” he said, looking stunned. He touched the back of his neck.
From behind came triumphant shouts. At the battle, several people shoved one of the centaurs over the bank. A plume of magma rose skyward, holding the mob in stark relief.
Joey’s face darkened. He limped forward, waving his sword at Emily.
“Stay back.” She pointed the wand. “I will use it.” But she knew she couldn’t use such a weapon against another human being, even someone like Joey.
He lunged at her, swinging wide. Instead of striking him with the wand, she stepped inside and grabbed the arrow in his ribs. He howled as loud as any hellhound. She yanked the arrow out.
Joey fell, dropping his sword. Emily kicked it out of reach. Lip curled, she stared at him. She never wanted to kill anyone more than at that moment. But Joey couldn’t be killed, and she was running out of time. She had to leave him there.
He held his side, breathing in sobbing gasps. Must’ve punctured a lung. She grasped the arrow in his thigh and pulled. It came out easily. What a shame she wasn’t using barbed arrowheads to do more damage.
The sword was lightweight in spite of its size, and Emily had no problem wielding it. She retrieved the arrow he deflected and, sword in hand, walked to the flying disk. Mounting it, she rose into the air. Just as she cleared the bank, Joey leapt for her, grabbing the disk and hanging off the back.
His weight sent the disk plummeting. It carried them into the abyss.
FORTY-TWO
Emily screamed as she rode the falling disk into the chasm. She leaned from side to side, zigzagging, trying to knock Joey off. “Stop!” she shouted. “Let go!” Then she screamed again as the disk took another ominous plunge.
Jets of steam shot around her, and a plume of lava barred the way. She ducked underneath, cringing at the sizzle of liquid rock arcing overhead. Her coat smoked, and her face felt stiff and crisp.
“Help!” Joey shouted, jerking about.
His gyrations nearly knocked her off the disk. Glancing back, Emily saw his feet drag the surface of the lake. He burst into flames, shrieking.
The disk leveled. Emily leaned forward, flying faster. Orange glare seared her eyes. Heat shimmer distorted everything around her. The lake spat great dollops of boiling lava. Airborne embers caught in her hair and singed her cheeks. She yelled, inhaling a flurry of sparks. Grasping her chest, she coughed.
Joey quieted. She felt him shift his weight, pulling himself higher onto the disk, felt his fingers scratch the back of her boot. She chanced another backward glance. All that was left of him was his arms and his chest—everything from the waist down was burned away. He wore the remaining hellhound hide like a scarf. His scarred face looked as though it were melting—eyelids drooping, cheekbones bursting through flesh.
“Damn you!” he said, his voice gravelly.
He tried to grab her ankle. Emily would have kicked him, but she was afraid to move her feet out of the niches that propelled the disk. She swung the sword—it sliced through his forearm smoother than butter.
Joey dropped into the lava. He waved his remaining arm as if he were a drowning swimmer.
Emily continued to zigzag, picking up speed, dodging spitting magma and pockets of steam. As she sped faster, her altitude increased. She drew level with one of the land bridges.
The workers gawked, standing motionless. A few ran to parallel her. More interesting was the reaction of the many hell-spawn. They did not curse at her or throw rocks as she expected. They stared as if mesmerized. Several fell to one knee.
She pushed their strange behavior from her thoughts. The opposite bank approached. Emily realized she hadn’t risen high enough to land.
Leaning forward, she urged the disk to fly as fast as it could. At the last moment, she leapt for the bank, catching the stone lip in her midsection. She hit with an oof and scrambled to safety, panting as she hugged the ground. In the back of her awareness, she heard a roar of cheers coming from the bridges.
With a melodic gong, the flying disk slammed the cliff and fell. It floated for a moment on the surface of the lava before sinking. Farther away, Joey was a dot, rolling over and over upon the current of the lake.
The workers cheered as Emily ran. She expected hills on this side of the lake, but the ground was flat and smooth as if graded. Nowhere to hide. When she felt she was clear of the lake’s aura, she stopped to take stock.
Her coat continued to smoke. She took it off to inspect the damage. The hem smoldered, and she stamped it with her boot. The air was much colder, even so close to the fire pit. Within moments, the night air chilled her. Shivering, she put on her coat.
For weapons, she had her bone knife and seven arrows, not counting the bad one she’d stuck in her boot. It wouldn’t fly and wouldn’t be much help, but she couldn’t see tossing it away. She also had a caretaker wand that would stun, if not kill, a demon. And she had Joey’s sword.
She picked it up, gingerly fingering its edge, remembering how cleanly the blade had severed Joey’s forearm. She wondered if he was still alive, burning for eternity, and she felt a twinge of pity. Then she thought of all the guiltless victims he had lured to this place, and her heart hardened.
Turning her back on Joey and the lake of fire, Emily walked. The immense castle was about two hundred yards away. Towers and spires jutted into the dark sky. Light outlined hundreds of windows. Leafless trees surrounded the building as if the grounds were landscaped. Emily assumed they were the same human-absorbing trees she saw previously.
As she neared, she noted the gates—twelve in all, Gun had told her. Demons loitered at one entrance as if at a party. Farther on was a large, torch-lined drawbridge with two centaurs standing on it. The centaurs wore gleaming breastplates. Emily doubted her arrows would take them down, and she didn’t want to get close enough to their stingers to fight with a sword. She turned in the other direction where a moat surrounded the castle. It was eight feet across, too wide to jump. A familiar clicking sound grew as she approached, and she looked over the edge to see millions of scarab beetles scuttling over one another, filling the moat to scant inches from the top.
Emily still wore strips of hound hide over her boots, making her feet immune to bugs, but she couldn’t walk across the moat. She needed a bridge. Her gaze fell upon the landscape of trees.
Branches gleamed like white bones in the night. Emily chose a tree nearest the moat. It had the imprint of a human upon its trunk, but the face was so overgrown, she doubted the person was aware of her.
Taking careful aim, she swung the sword. The blade cleaved the trunk. Moisture seeped from the gash. The eyes of the entrapped person flew open; the frozen mouth hissed like a cat.
Emily swung the sword once more and the tree fell. A puddle formed around the stump. Hesitating, Emily reached to the bark, then snatched her hand away. Again, she touched it. It did not attempt to encase her fingers. It was dead.
She dragged the tree nearer the moat. The trunk was lightweight and porous, but unwieldy.
“Oh. Oh,” cried the person inside, sounding terrified and confused.
Emily tried not to listen. She pulled the tree to the edge and pushed until it reached the other side.
Immediately, beetles swarmed over the makeshift bridge, scurrying across its length. Emily leapt back before they touched her skin. The person in the tree yelled. Beetles scuttled into the open mouth—but the face was so coated with bark, the bugs took no notice. Neither the tree nor the person trapped within appeared harmed by the insects.
Now it was her turn. Emily took a breath, then placed a foot upon the bridge. Beetles skittered from her hide-covered boot. She stepped up. The curve of the trunk made it difficult to walk, so she turned sideways and shuffled. The ravenous bugs avoided her feet.
Emily tried not to imagine what would happen if she fell. She was halfway across when a muck-encrusted arm reached out of the moat and snagged the tree.
FORTY-THREE
Windmilling her arms, Emily fought to maintain her balance as the skeleton-thin hand grappled with the tree. The high-pitched click of insects swelled. On slippery fur-wrapped boots, she bounded along the bridge and leapt for firm ground.
Another arm reached from the teeming mass of scarab beetles in the moat. Then a third stretched out. Fingers over her mouth, Emily stepped back. Her thoughts reeled. People were alive in there. They were trying to get out. What should she do? How could she help?
Before she could decide on a course of action, a resounding crack rent the air, and the trunk split in two. Numerous hands groped the wood, black and slimy against the bone white of the bark. Within seconds, they pulled the tree beneath the surface and disappeared. The beetles continued churning.
Emily was unable to turn away. You can’t help those people. You didn’t come to change this world. You’re here for April.
She shook her head, goading herself to walk. Someone might investigate the sound the tree made when it broke. She had to find cover. Instead of heading toward the castle, however, she stepped to the bank of the moat. She lowered to one knee. Then, as if planning to do it all along, she plunged the caretaker wand beneath the surface.
The resulting flash blasted her backward. Emily stared in amazement as twin waves of light traveled the moat in opposite directions, turning human and beetle alike to dust.
Chain reaction.
Her heart leapt to her throat. She hadn’t meant it to go so far. She only wanted to kill the insects, give the people a chance to get out. The rapidly emptying moat would attract attention. She might as well have sent up a flare.
Shouts disrupted a sudden silence. The air filled with the clap of centaur hooves. Emily sprinted to the castle. She turned a corner and ran flat into an iron pike, knocking it askew. With a shout of alarm, she jumped back as if the metal was hot. In fact, it was bone-achingly cold. Overhead, an impaled woman wailed like a siren. Emily gazed upward.
There were six pikes, each with a woman skewered at the top. One victim was upside down, the point entering her mouth. All six people were eyeless, half-eaten by harpies, or worse. All writhed in pain.
Emily glanced toward the darkness behind her. Then she bulldozed forward, ramming her shoulder into the spears, shoving hard. Tall and top heavy, the pikes fell with little provocation, striking the ground with a thud. Emily kept walking. She risked a look back. The women were pulling themselves free.
Eyes on the nearest gate, Emily pressed against the wall. Ice crystals sparkled on the stone blocks, and she was astonished that the temperature could drop so fast.
A halo surrounded the arched entry. Flaming torches on either side whipped and roared with the wind. A gargoyle head protruded above the gate’s twisted spikes, and the flickering shadows made the sculpture appear alive.
Eyes wide, ears alert, Emily entered the castle. She notched an arrow as she walked, although she doubted she could shoot properly with her freezing fingers. The vestibule stank like urine. It ended at a pair of thick, stone doors at least fifteen feet high and ten to twelve feet across. One side was open. Keeping close to the doorjamb, Emily stood on the fringes of an enormous, brightly lit rotunda.
Dozens of fiery braziers filled the room with heat and smoke. Statues of hell-spawn stood floor to ceiling like pillars. Torches dotted the walls, lighting colorful frescoes upon the walls—graphic depictions of demons forcing steaming liquid down a man’s throat or holding a woman spread-eagled while they removed her intestines with a barbed hook.
Emily peered around the edge of the door. Besides the twelve gates, eight staircases entered the room—four leading up and four down. The up-staircases had statues of hellhounds before them. The ones leading down disappeared in darkness.