by Laney McMann
“I did come to see ya.”
“And who did ya bring?” She pointed a long silvery finger, her talon-like hand covered in silver scales. “Ah, not that one again?” She stared past Kade with bright yellow-red eyes that might have been a byproduct of not seeing the light of day often.
Cole groaned. “Euryale.”
“Didn’t I almost kill ya once?” She was still pointing.
He released a breath Kade knew he was trying hard to control. “Yes. A couple years ago.”
“Aha, I remember,” she eyed him with a narrow gaze, as if she couldn’t see well. “Ya got taller.”
Cole didn’t answer, only gave a straight-lipped smile.
“And ya?” Her yellow-red eyes shifted toward Kade. “What did ya bring me, Heru?” The sound only a slithering snake could make touched Kade’s ears, and she realized that Euryale had moved forward, closer to the gate—not on legs, she had none—but on the lower half of a snake. “Come here, girl.”
Cole gripped Kade’s hand, forcing her not to move.
“Cole—” Heru warned.
Euryale smiled. “Ah, this is ya girl.” She nodded at Cole, snakes hissing in a wild mass on her head. “Protective of her, I see it now. I won’t hurt her.”
Cole didn’t flinch, didn’t release Kade’s hand, and said nothing.
“It’s okay, Cole.” Kade gently let his hand go, and felt waves of heat vibrate off his body as she walked to the gate.
“Well, what we have here?” Euryale looked Kade up and down, her body moving slightly from side to side, the same way a cobra’s would. Maybe having a snake for your lower half meant standing still wasn’t possible.
“Why do you two talk the same?” Cole whispered to his uncle. “That’s not weird to you?”
“We don’t talk the same,” Heru muttered. “We are just from a similar time period, that’s all.”
“It’s weird,” Cole said. “It’s like Kade and I sounding exactly the same.”
Heru sighed. “Okay, can we please pay attention to what is at hand?”
“What are ya saying?” Euryale asked. “Are ya planning to stay awhile?” Her silver-hued eyelashes batted at Heru as she glanced away from Kade.
“If that would be all right. I was hoping we could talk.”
“I’m sure ya were.” She eyed Kade again with an expression Kade couldn’t read, and the wrought iron gates rose away from the sandy ground of the dark cave.
Euryale slithered ahead, leaving a marked serpentine wake of her progress in the sand. Heru walked behind her, and Kade and Cole followed down a series of low and narrow passageways that led deeper into the Underworld. Every now and then a lit torch appeared to have been jammed into the cave wall by force, illuminating the otherwise black space in an odd orange glow. Cole kept ducking through the cave tunnels, cursing under his breath every few steps when the light became too low to see and his head hit the ceiling.
“I hate this place,” he mumbled. “Mine shafts are better than this.”
“What’s that ya saying back there?” Euryale continued her slither.
“Nothing at all, my dear,” Heru responded, drowning out Cole’s continued curses.
The passageway opened into a large underground grotto adorned with ornately carved stone pillars supporting a low ceiling. Some of the carvings on the pillars were symbols from ancient Greece. One of them was definitely a falcon’s head.
Stalactites hung suspended overhead, dripping a greenish liquid from their tips onto the sand and into several shallow, green pools. The water glittered with the light from burning torches embedded in the walls. The space was large for being underground, but sweltering, and the smell of rotten eggs was overwhelming.
Cole lifted the collar of his shirt over his mouth and nose. Heru gave him a look, but Cole didn’t seem to give a damn because the shirt stayed over his face. Kade grinned. Whatever circumstances they seemed to find themselves in, she could never stop staring at Cole. Whether he was being an ass, or loving, or polite, it didn’t matter. Everything about him attracted her.
A popping and cracking noise, like a wood-burning fire, drew her attention away from Cole’s broad, clearly ‘over it already,’ stance, and toward a set of stairs carved into the cave wall. They descended in a spiral at the far end of the grotto into another passageway, glowing in the same orange color. Kade didn’t have any desire to know where the steps led.
“Come over here, boy.” Euryale slithered across the grotto between the shallow green pools and took a seat on a large flattened rock, coiling her snake body underneath her. She beckoned Cole forward with a long, silver-scaled taloned finger.
With an audible groan, he eyed Heru, who had taken a seat on a similar surface a few feet away. Heru motioned with a tilt of his head for Cole to obey. Reluctantly, he let go of Kade’s hand and walked forward.
Euryale smiled, all short blue, pointed teeth, her snakes for hair still hissing like an off-key choir around her head. “Let me see ya, handsome boy.” She reached out and grasped hold of Cole’s arm with the speed of snake strike. His shoulders squared and tightened, but he didn’t yank away. Euryale pushed his long sleeve up, inspecting the lines on his palm and wrist. “Mm hm, that’s what I thought.”
Cole didn’t respond, his jaw muscles working.
“Ya been toying with that girl too long.” She pointed at Kade. “Done infected ya now.”
His eyes narrowed and he pulled the collar of his shirt away from his nose and mouth. “Excuse me?”
“Ya heard me right, boy. I speak clearly enough. The marks here on yar arm, ya know what’s happenin' to ya, yeah?”
He glanced at Kade, keeping his breaths steady. “What’s that?”
Euryale smiled and looked at Heru. “This why ya came here? The real reason? Not ta see me, yeah?”
Heru’s bright blue eyes sparkled under the firelight, wing tattoos practically glowing in the darkened underground on his neck. “Ya know more than anyone, my dear. Where else would I go but to ya?”
“Hm. Charmer ya are, always have been. Yar savin’ grace.” She focused back on Cole. “Take off yar jacket, then.”
“I … okay.” He rubbed his neck and shrugged his jacket off, handing it to Kade.
“And ya shirt.” Euryale flipped a finger. “That, too. Can’t see through it, ya know.”
With an evil stare at his uncle, who only chuckled, Cole took his shirt off and handed it to Kade.
She eyed him in a way she could tell he wished she wouldn’t right then.
“There we go.” Euryale placed her silvery taloned hands on Cole’s back, tracing his scars.
He sucked in a breath.
“Yar father is not a good man, do ya know?”
Cole’s brow crunched, body rigid, but he didn’t speak.
“Euryale—“ Heru’s tone was stern.
She shrugged with a hand on Cole’s bicep. “Does he know?”
Cole still didn’t speak.
“Beautiful child, and look what he done to ya.” Euryale shook her head, snakes hissing inches from Cole’s face. “Ya scars,” she said, “they searching for healing. And healing they found.”
“Huh?” Cole glanced at her.
She looked at him directly, but Cole shifted his eyes slightly upward away from her face. “I won’t hurt ya, boy. I want ya to look at me.”
“Cole—“ Heru warned.
With his jaw sealed, he looked Euryale in the eye. Kade had to give it to him, he was the bravest person she’d ever known.
“Good. Ya see?” she said. “We can get along just fine. Now, I want ya ta look here. They stretchin,' ya see?”
Cole glanced down at his arm, held in her claw-like hand.
“Here, they moved from yar palm, round yar wrist, to yar forearm, and now from bicep to shoulder.”
“Right …”
“The lines are reachin’ for the scars on yar back,” she said. “That’s why they white, see? Like yar scars are white. Beautiful in thei
r own way, aren’t they, girl?” She caught Kade staring. “His scars.”
Kade flicked her gaze away, reaching for her own scar on her neck—her missing sparrow wings. “Um … yes. They are.” She glanced up, and her gaze locked with Cole’s.
“Nothin' to be ashamed of, girl. Some scars are lovely. Come over here.” She motioned for Kade to come forward.
Setting Cole’s clothes down on the sand, she obeyed, and slowly walked over.
Euryale took Kade’s hand in her own, inspecting the lines on her palm. “Fading, ya?”
Kade nodded, swallowing hard. “Some.”
“No traveling, no movement.” The woman rotated Kade’s hand around, and placed it face down on Cole’s shoulder. He shuddered under her touch like she’d shocked him. “Ya feel that?”
Kade nodded. There was a hum—a vibration—she had always thought of it as the energy that was present between her and Cole. Their own kind of magnetism.
“Look,” Euryale said.
Kade exhaled. Underneath her hand, where her skin touched Cole’s shoulder, the lines on his arm were growing—moving—spreading. “Oh, my god.” She yanked her hand away. “I’m doing this to him? Making them worse?”
“Ya.” Euryale gave a nod. “Not the scars his father gave him, but the rest.”
Cole let out a breath like he’d been punched in the stomach.
“But—“ Kade’s hand went over her mouth, and she backed up, wide-eyed. No.
“Ya didn’t do it on purpose.” Euryale waved a hand. “This is what happens when a fusionem crystal is held between two people in the right way. It connects ya. And every time ya get close,” she eyed them in turn, “the lines increase on the receiver, intensifying the bond.”
“The lines increase to where?” Cole asked.
“Everywhere. Ya see, in years past, when someone tried to create an Anamolia, it was out of a lust for power. The idea of a Devil God made men greedy—still does. They believed they could use such a creature to perform evil deeds. Myths and legends tell of stories about the fierceness of such a creature. Usually if one tried to create an Anamolia, and tried to create it for evil ways, they failed. Many innocents have seen an untimely death due to ignorance in this way. Younger generations know too little, ya see.”
Heru nodded in agreement.
“All who have walked this Earth since its inception know—the only true way to create an Anamolia is not by creating one at all.”
“Sorry?” Cole’s eyes screwed up.
“Fusionem crystals were abundant in years past, as were yar kind.” She gestured at Kade. “Ya are the yin and yang. The true balance of all that is. Ya can’t have the tail without the head, good without bad. All creatures who walked this Plane and other Planes knew of balance in the ancient time. What we have now—have had in more modern times—is an uneven tip of the scales. The evil that walks the earth and other Planes is based on a lack of balance.” She looked at Kade.
“Ya may be rare in today’s time, but in ancient time, yar kind was a dime a dozen. Over time, the race died out, as some do, and fell into myth. But ya hear me, girl, everyone has the devil and the angel inside ‘em. Ya may choose either side. The Daemoneum hopes ya choose the devil.”
“I …?” Kade stared, trying to keep her focus indirect, but it was a challenge, and words weren’t forming.
“Yar uncle may have been a bad man, but he was good man, too. I think ya know that.”
An unwanted sting prickled Kade’s eyes and nose, and she glanced down. What was happening?
“Ya see, girl, he couldn’t have created ya if he didn’t love ya. Anamolia don’t work that way. Why do ya think they aren’t roamin’ the Earth? So many Devil’s Children been tryin’ to make ‘em—create some devil army—but it hasn’t worked. Why?” She threw her arms out. “They don’t love. They have no balance.”
Kade shifted to Cole. His gaze was soft, but bewildered in a way she couldn’t read.
“You could hand me your fusionem crystal, if ya wanted—I know it’s on ya—and we could both hold it at the same time, and it would do nothin.’”
“Everything I’ve read, all I’ve researched said the crystal needed to be held between light and dark forces to activate it,” Cole said.
Euryale waved a hand in the air. “Theories. Myths. Legends. Lots of ‘em. We’d have Anamolia running around all over the place if that was the case. What with all the Primeva we have now. Why, there are thousands of them, none Turned to Anamolia. Although in early times, that was the intent, ya? The Devil’s Children tried. So, where are they? Why no more Anamolia?”
“No love,” Kade whispered, staring at Cole.
“No love,” Euryale echoed. “Not that no one loved then, they did, but love was not the intent in creating an Anamolia, power and control were—still are. After yar race died out and myths of their existence spread, people got the wrong idea about what a Devil God was. Ya’re just balance, nothing more or less.”
Cole glanced at Heru who shrugged a little. “She explains it better than I ever could have.”
“Yar uncle was a good doctor and an evil man,” Euryale said to Kade. “Always battling himself, trying to conquer his fear. Fear won in the end, sometimes it does, but he did love ya. Ya wouldn’t be standin’ here otherwise.”
Kade had no idea what to say. She was right. Her dad had been good so many times, but he wasn’t at the same time—he’d always tried to fight the demon inside him.
“And there are all types of love, not only romantic, but love is still love.”
Kade was speechless, thoughts spinning. “Why do you choose to live down here, guarding the Underworld?” The words just fell out of her mouth.
Euryale smiled, all blue teeth and snakes still hissing with abandon on her head. “The world does not know me anymore. I’m seen as a monster to this world. Humans have forgotten their own power—who they are, and where their roots lie—so they see me and others like me from the ancient world,” she nodded at Heru, “who have walked this Earth for many millennia, as a threat.”
“But you aren’t that—a monster,” Kade said. “I’d know.”
“Nor are ya, child. I am what I choose to be. People will always see what they wish to see and no more.”
Kade wanted to hug the woman but thought better of it. Cole stood, stock still and white-faced. “What am I doing to him?” she asked. “Why are his lines spreading?”
“Ya healing him,” Euryale turned to Cole, running a hand over the lines on his bicep, “and if ya continue to love him as ya do, if ya continue loving each other as ya do, dating one another, staying close, ya will continue to heal him—his heart, his mind, his soul. Ya’ll give him what he needs—what was taken from him. Ya will create the balance he’s missing. And ya will turn him into an Anamolia.”
Cole swayed—actually tilted where he stood. Kade put an arm out, wrapping his waist—she’d never seen him unsteady. He was the epitome of grace. He stared at his uncle. “You knew,” he said in a hushed tone. “That’s why we came here.”
“Ya.” Heru held eye contact.
Cole let out a pained breath, and stared down at his hand, all the white lines encircling it, and stepped away from Kade. He put his shirt back on, his jacket, and without a word, disappeared into the tunnel through which they’d entered the grotto.
Chapter 26
It had to have been after midnight, Caelius thought, staring at the ceiling of his prison cell from his cot, but he couldn’t sleep. That was the issue with a glass-enclosed room overlooking an endless dark cosmos—the view never changed. On Earth, the sun rose and set along with the moon, signaling the change of time, even the change of season. It had taken Caelius a long time to adjust to that strange phenomenon when he’d first taken up residence within the Ward in Rome and had been named Warden of the Primordial race. Earth had been odd in so many ways at first—the change of season was only one—but he had grown accustomed to it, and later found he preferred sunlight and warm
th. The Celestial Plane was never warm. And staring through the crystal cell walls, it was never sunny, either, just dark with spots of starlight. Sleep wouldn’t come.
Sitting up, he rested his elbows on his knees, leaning forward off the side of the cot. He’d sent a message to Heru hours ago but had received no response. He hoped all was well, and Cole and Kade were safe. Caelius had sent as many clues to Heru as he was able—now it was up to him to figure them out.
A slight shuffle sounded beyond his cell door and he shifted his gaze over. A shadow moved in the tight crevice between the bottom of the door and the floor. An almost silent sound came from the key hole and the cell door opened a crack.
“Come on,” a voice whispered. “Quickly.”
Caelius popped to his feet. “Mother?”
“Yes, yes, who else?” She motioned frantically with her hand.
Caelius followed her out of his cell and into the desolate and dark hallway. “What are you doing?”
“Getting you out of here.” She closed the door behind them and shuffled him forward. “I overheard something Elder Cato told one of the other Elders a little while ago. He plans to hold you on charges for treason regardless of how your testimony goes.”
“Are you surprised by that?” He grinned slightly, quickly but quietly making his way through the winding crystal hallways of Stella Urbem.
“Now is not the time, son. Just move.” She came to a stop where the hallways crisscrossed one another, and edged along the wall, checking in every direction. “Okay, go.”
They hustled down another hallway and toward a door Caelius remembered to be the entrance into a stairwell leading to the ground level of the Star City. A Leygate was just outside it.
“Mother, you should go back,” he said hurriedly as they made their way down the stairs. “I can find my way.”
“There have been two hits on the St. Michael Line,” she said in a rush. “The first at Skellig Michael in Ireland and the second on Silbury Hill near Glastonbury.”