Sweet Shadows (27 page)

I crouch down, hoping my dark clothes blend into the rock around me. The line extends in both directions: to the left for as far as I can see; to the right, it winds around to a small cave opening. That must be the door.

I can hear the roar of falling water, at the cliff where the river spills off into nothing.

“How am I going to get through that line?” I wonder out loud.

Who knows how long it could take to go around? The line could go on to infinity. Time is of the essence.

“No worry,” Sillus says. “Sillus distract.”

I look at the monkey skeptically. He is one tiny cercopes, and they’re a whole bunch of big and nasty.

Before I can voice my concern, he’s taking off toward the line. He whisper-shouts back over his shoulder, “You watch! Take opening!”

I growl to myself and get into a ready position. I have no idea what the little nut has planned, but if he succeeds, I need to be able to act fast.

He approaches the line, scrambling up to the biggest, nastiest thing there. A Hesperian dragon. The one time I had to take on one of those, it nearly beat me. They’re crazy strong and just pure crazy, with a hundred heads. They fight like beasts with nothing to lose.

Sillus sneaks up behind it—drawing the attention of several other monsters that point and laugh—and then jumps on its back. He climbs up the big, nasty body, wraps his monkey legs around one of the necks, and covers the beast’s eyes with his little hands.

Within seconds I see what Sillus has planned. The Hesperian dragon roars loud enough to shake the cavern and starts flailing around wildly. It knocks into monsters on all sides of it, beasts that don’t appreciate being shoved around, even by something as terrifying as a Hesperian dragon. They’re not terrified. They shove back, and shove into one another, and soon the entire line has erupted into chaos.

Sillus holds on for dear life, and the increasingly furious Hesperian dragon swings its other ninety-nine heads wide, sending creatures all around to the ground, creating a circle in the midst of all the fighting.

My opening.

I jump to my feet and take off at a dead sprint. I make a beeline for the circle, trying not to think about the sheer number of blood- and huntress-thirsty monsters around me. I make it to the line just as the gap is starting to contract. Then I’m through, racing on the other side and scanning the area for some cover. I spot a pile of rocks to my right, directly across from where the golden maiden said the Den should be.

Ducking behind the pile, I press my back up against the rocks and suck in breath after breath. It’s like breathing fire, in and out. My lungs are starting to calm down when Sillus appears in front of me.

“See,” he says with a giant grin. “Sillus distract.”

“That you did,” I say, my voice breathy as I work on my recovery. “How’d you get out of there?”

He shrugs. Needing to witness this for myself, I peer around the rocks and see the Hesperian dragon on the ground, unmoving. Several other monsters are tying its necks together in bunches of three or four.

Looking across the space I just ran through and back up the hill, I see the faint glimmer of the golden maiden. They’re still watching.

When I turn back, Sillus is gone and I’m staring at a pair of big, blackened feet that look as though they’ve been soaking in charcoal. Following the feet up the legs, waist, and torso to the hideous face on top, I realize I’m in big trouble. The cacus.

“Uh-oh.”

It grins, showing rough, uneven teeth with dark growth along the gums. It bends down, grabs me around the arms, and hauls me over its shoulder.

Well, at least now I don’t have to figure out how to get into the Den. The cacus is taking me there.

“Found this lurking outside, boss,” the cacus says as he drags me into what looks like an office.

The walls are the same black, shiny rock as the rest of the abyss. But ceiling lights illuminate the space, so I have no problem making out the old metal desk and the telchis sitting in the burgundy leather desk chair, his slobbering pit bull head drooling all over his own chest while his seal flippers smack together enthusiastically.

Nor do I miss the boy sitting in one of two bright-orange fiberglass chairs facing the desk.

“Nick?”

All my worst imaginings flash through my mind. Nick being tortured for information. Nick being torn to pieces by a mob of angry monsters. Nick being cast into the fires of Hades.

But Nick sitting in the boss’s office, casual as can be with a glass of what looks like iced tea in his hand? That never even crossed my mind as a possibility.

When he sees me, his demeanor changes. He looks scared. Not of the monsters in the room. He’s scared of me. Why?

“What’s going on here?” I ask.

“You two know each other?” the boss asks. “How wonderful. You’ve been doing your job well, Niko.”

“Job?” I echo. “What job?”

“Gretchen, it’s—” Nick doesn’t finish, but he doesn’t have to. The boss does.

“Niko here is one of our agents,” he says, sounding like a proud father. “One of our best.”

“Agents?”

Everything inside me goes still.

“Sent to find you, get close to you.” He glances from me to Nick. “Seduce you if he had to.”

I feel like retching. Right here, on the boss’s desk. If I’d had anything to eat in the last few days, I just might have.

Betrayal like I’ve never felt before turns my body to ice. There’s nothing to say. I clench my jaw and stare at the rough black wall behind the boss’s head.

“What you want me to do, boss?” the cacus asks. “Toss her over the edge?”

“No, you idiot. We need her alive.” The boss pushes himself to his feet, and I see that from the waist down, he isn’t as human as his torso would suggest. On clacking goat hooves he rounds the desk and steps up close to me. So close, I can smell his putrid breath.

Disgusting. Dog head, human chest, flipper arms, and goat legs. That’s one messed-up family tree. Or should I say family zoo?

“We need her and her lovely sisters to open the door,” he says, taking a loose chunk of my hair between his fingertips. “Then we can kill them.”

I let the saliva build in my mouth for a second before spitting in his face.

His fingers clamp down on my hair and yank. Hard.

“Ow!” I can’t stifle my scream.

Nick lurches out of his chair. “Don’t—”

The boss smacks a flipper against Nick’s chest, keeping him at a distance.

“This is between me and the pretty huntress,” the boss says. “You stay out of it.”

“I don’t need a rescuer,” I say, forcing myself to show more boldness than I feel at the moment. “I can take care of myself.”

I can’t—won’t—look at Nick, but I sense him backing off.

“I’m sure you—”

The boss doesn’t finish his sentence before the door to the office flies open. Sillus appears in the doorway. With about half a dozen monsters at his back.

“There,” he says, pointing at the boss. “Him.”

I don’t know what Sillus told the beasts, but they all lunge for the telchis. The guard releases me to protect his boss from the onslaught. Sillus jumps on the guard’s head, just as he did with the Hesperian dragon in the line.

“Go!” he shouts, pointing at the door.

I nod.

I grab Nick, holding his upper arm in a death grip, and run. I’m not leaving the traitor to commiserate with his handlers, to tell them any more than he already has about me and my sisters.

I want the chance to interrogate him myself.

Sprinting from the office with no real idea of what I’m going to do once I get outside, I’m stunned to find the pegasus waiting for me.

“Get on, cousin,” he says, looking nervously over his shoulder toward the line. “The portal is about to open.”

The pegasus curls his front leg back, holding it like a step, and I shove Nick toward him.

“Get on,” I say in a tone that is intended to let him know there is no other option.

It must, because he places his foot on the curled leg, swings onto the winged horse’s back, and reaches an arm down to help me up. Ignoring his arm, I grab a handful of mane and yank myself up in front of him.

Sillus comes running out of the office looking very pleased with himself.

“Hurry!” I shout, holding out my hand to him.

He takes a leap and grabs my hand, and I settle him on the horse, right in front of me.

“Let’s go!” I shout.

The pegasus spreads his wings out wide and, with one strong flap, draws us into the air. It is a strange sensation, to be flying through the air on the back of a horse. But as the monsters below notice us, I’m glad to have several feet of space between us and them.

Soaring over the monsters, toward the front of the line, the pegasus glides for the portal cave. As we get closer, I see the cave start to swirl and glow with a bright sky-blue spot in the center.

Just like the black portal in my world, this one grows and expands to a size large enough to accommodate the largest monster. Or, hopefully, a Pegasus with a full load.

The monsters below point and roar, and the one at the front of the line turns just as we fly by. He reaches for us but misses.

Then we enter the portal and the abyss disappears behind us.

F
rom a distance, the portals into the abyss always looked pretty dull. Big, boring black splotches in space. Like a piece of contemporary art or a flaw in an old photograph. But up close, staring at one right in front of me—and about to walk into it—they’re a little terrifying. A great vacuum, an emptiness that makes me feel despair just looking into it.

I squeeze Greer’s hand.

We step forward together, ready to face whatever shadows await in order to save Gretchen.

Before we get close enough to step inside, there’s a low rumble—like the sound of waves crashing against rocks. Greer and I exchange a look, surprised by the sudden change. Then, before we can move or speak or do anything, a giant silvery horse flies out of the portal.

“Whaaa!”
I scream, shoving Greer to the side as I jump in the opposite direction, out of the path of the flying beast.

“Whoa!” a girl’s voice shouts.

I stare up at the horse, his giant wings thumping against the ceiling as he lands. Sitting on his back, looking a little gaunt but otherwise safe and whole, is my sister.

“Gretchen!” I shout.

Jumping to my feet, I feel a smile take over my entire face. She beams down at me.

“Grace?”

“Hello, Gretchen,” Greer says from the other side of the horse.

Gretchen slides to the floor, pulling a body down with her. Nick. He looks unconscious, his arms bound by a pair of sturdy zip ties. There’s a red mark, about the size of a fist, on his temple.

Gretchen tosses him aside like a bag of garbage. She looks up at the winged horse—a pegasus, I realize. “I wish I could let you stay.”

The horse whinnies. “I understand. A horse wandering the streets of San Francisco wouldn’t get far.”

My jaw drops. Not at the talking horse—I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff since Gretchen found me in that nightclub, so an animal capable of perfect English isn’t too shocking—but at Gretchen being nice to a creature from the abyss.

The pegasus lowers his head, offering his neck to Gretchen. She hesitates and says something quietly into his ear before giving him a quick bite right below the mane. In a flash he’s gone.

A little monkeylike creature that had been sitting on the horse’s back crashes to the ground. He jumps up to his feet.

“Sillus stay,” he says. “Sillus help.”

Gretchen looks like she’s considering, like she really doesn’t want to send him back with the pegasus. The Gretchen I first met a few weeks ago wouldn’t have hesitated. But in the end she shrugs. “Okay, but the first sign of mischief and you’re back in Abyssos.”

“Abyssos?” I ask.

“Abyssos is the true name of the abyss.” Gretchen turns to me. “I missed you two.”

Her silver eyes cloud over, as if a thick bank of fog has rolled in and shadowed her inner sunlight. I know how much it must have taken for her to admit that. I step forward and wrap her in a hug. She may not want one, but she clearly needs one.

Gretchen awkwardly pats me on the back. Then, in an uncharacteristic moment of emotion, she gives me a brief squeeze. She’s stepping away before I can squeeze back.

“I take it you learned something about him,” Greer says, indicating Nick’s unconscious lump. “Or did someone else land the punch that knocked him out?”

Gretchen’s scowl says everything.

“He’s no protector,” she says. “He was sent by the monster side to watch us, to help us until we open the door.”

“And then?” I ask.

“Then, I assume, he’d help them kill us.”

Greer frowns, twisting her head to the side. “Are you certain?”