“Yes I will,” I heard him reply. “I’m closing the veil behind me, and in case you haven’t realized, your father was never imprisoned down here. That was only an illusion. No one knows where he is.”
Sonofabitch! No one since Dagon had fucked me over this thoroughly. My power blasted out, but then had nowhere to go, so it flooded back into me hard enough to knock me over.
My most fearsome abilities were useless. I couldn’t pull someone into the netherworld when we were already here.
“I’ll find a way out, and I will come for you!” I shouted again, although I doubted he could hear me anymore.
Then again, maybe he could. Laughter faintly drifted back down to me. After that, I heard nothing at all.
Chapter 18
I allowed myself a moment to feel all the rage, frustration, and need for revenge boiling in me. Then, I forced it all down. I couldn’t get revenge until we got out of here, and we couldn’t do that until we figured out a plan. Good plans required thought, not raging emotions.
“Ian?” I called out when I felt calmer. “Where are you?”
“Here,” I heard him say in a strained tone above me.
I followed the sound. After a moment, I caught sight of him. Height-wise, he was about halfway between the acid lake and the ledge that Phanes had destroyed, but much farther left from where I’d landed. Phanes must have flown me away for a bit before he hurled me down. Ian’s body was angled oddly against the wall, too, with his arms hanging almost loosely and his head tilted all the way back.
How could he hold on to whatever he’d used to stop his fall like that? Unless he’d found a double foothold . . . no. His feet were dangling free. What the hell was holding him up, then?
I tilted my head to get a better look . . . and gasped. “You rammed your fangs into the wall to stop your fall?”
It looked like his cheek creased into a smile. “Felt like giving a mountain a blow job, but it did the trick.”
His sense of humor still being intact was almost as remarkable as him hanging there by only his fangs. I couldn’t imagine the painful effort it had taken him to smash his face into the rock wall hard enough for his fangs to anchor him, let alone the twisted imagination it had taken to think to do that.
But he had. Hard to kill, indeed.
Still, Phanes was right. Ian couldn’t hang there forever, nor could I keep this swirling wall of liquid acid at bay for an indefinite length of time.
“We need to get out of here,” I said, looking around for anything I could use as climbing tools.
Nothing but flat, hard rock in the small space. My teeth ground. I had to find something more useful.
I began to walk, pushing my power at the liquid acid swirling around me. At first, it didn’t move, and irritation merged with my growing sense of desperation.
A little help, please? I thought at my other half.
Quit fighting me, and the power would be there, was her pointed response.
I wasn’t trying to fight her. My heightened emotions had pushed her away—a side effect of a merging process I still didn’t fully understand. I’d thought smashing the inner cage I’d long housed her in would make everything, well, blended between us, but it hadn’t. In some ways, my relationship with my other nature was more complicated than ever.
We need to work together or we’ll die together, and so will our sorcerer, I said, using the moniker she’d chosen for Ian.
That won’t happen, she thought, sending a wave out to knock down one of the eyeless creatures crawling up the wall toward Ian. It fell back into the remaining lake and disintegrated.
Shame, I thought. We could have used its claws.
I felt her shrug. We still can.
“We can, can’t we?” I said out loud. I’d seen several of these creatures down here, clinging to the wall like bats to the sides of a cave. All I needed to do was get over to where they were, and one of the crawlers would come to me.
“Who are you talking to?” Ian asked.
“Myself,” I replied, adding, “Both of us,” with a stab of dark humor.
The wall muffled his laugh, but it was there. He’d never been frightened by my other half, even when I’d been terrified of what she could do.
What we can do, she corrected me.
Yes, we. Or both sides of me. Or . . . I gave up.
“Hang on,” I said to Ian. “I’m going to get climbing gear.”
I could practically feel her cracking her knuckles in anticipation.
Step back. This won’t take a moment.
It took half an hour. Or, at least, that’s what it felt like, although time stretched differently in the netherworld, so who knew how long it actually took? First, I had to move the dry space my power had made over to the wall that Ian was on. Then, I enticed two of the crawlers to get close enough to attack me. Once they did, I sliced them in half with an acid wave, grabbed their bodies, and held everything except their hands into the swirling wall of acid around me.
Now I had my climbing gear, in the form of four hands with razor-sharp claws. I tied two into a pocket I made from my dress, and then used the other two like climbing axes to scale the steep wall to reach Ian. The creatures’ preternaturally sharp claws slid into the rock as if it were butter. No wonder the things were so fast when they attacked.
Ian gave me a hard kiss when he was finally able to free his fangs from the wall. Then, he used his pair of severed hands to scale the wall alongside me.
“Phanes didn’t knock down the whole ledge,” I said, squinting in relief when I spotted the intact portion farther ahead. “I can see where it picks up again.”
“Good. Can’t wait to see his face when we catch up with him. Then, I’m going to rip it off and feed it to him.”
“If we have bodies left to do all that in,” I muttered.
“We will.”
Ian’s confidence made me stop climbing to look over at him.
“What do you think your brother’s been doing this whole time?” Ian said, with a short laugh.
“I’ve been a little too busy to wonder,” I said, stress making me snippy.
“Yes, well, Phanes will be sorely disappointed to discover that his friends won’t get to wear our bodies like he intended. Must be why Phanes didn’t object to me coming down here with you. But the last thing I did before passing through the veil was send a message to Ashael so he could come collect our bodies. Didn’t trust leaving them there when anyone could come upon them and do whatever they pleased.”
I remembered Ian turning his back before joining me in the netherworld, his muscles flexing as he did something neither Phanes nor I could see. His “message” to Ashael must have been sent via tactile spell. Good thing Ian had sent it off before we crossed into the netherworld, or it wouldn’t have worked.
And him doing it spoke volumes. “You suspected that Phanes was going to double-cross us, didn’t you?”
I hadn’t trusted Phanes, but I’d been so desperate to save my father—and so confident that Phanes couldn’t best me with my soul-ripping ability—that I hadn’t been as cautious as I normally was. What was the saying? Always pride before a fall? I had proved that, ending up at the bottom of a netherworld pit because of my overconfidence.
“Yes.” Ian’s tone turned to ice. “Though I did think we had the advantage down here with your lineage, so Phanes surprised me by using the netherworld’s traits against you when I thought they’d work in our favor. But, yes, I knew you were in danger as soon as you ran off with him. Felt it more strongly than I’d felt any of my prior premonitions. That’s why I did what I had to do to get here. Knew you’d die otherwise.”
What had he done to get here? Before I could ask, Ian’s expression brightened.
“Ah, now I see the ledge. Let’s not tarry any longer. Our clawed, toothy friends are back, and we’re too far up for you to swipe them away with an acid wave again.”
He was right. I could hear them skittering up the cave wall, though sl
ower now. Maybe they knew we’d killed several of their brethren and were warier as a result.
Ian and I quickly scaled our way over the remains of the ledge. Once there, I kept one hand on the chain lining the wall while the other held my clawed weapon. Ian did the same, and we had to use those weapons four times before we made it to the tunnel. Once we were there, the strange creatures gave up pursuit.
It was easy to determine which fork in the tunnel to take. Phanes hadn’t bothered to get rid of the bioluminescent streaks in the rock that marked our way back. His arrogance was a blessing in this case. When I saw him again, I’d thank him for that . . . before ripping his wings off.
Ian had already called dibs on ripping Phanes’s face off, so I’d leave that to him. Who said I couldn’t be agreeable when the situation called for it?
We ran down the tunnel, the faintly glowing blue-green streaks leading the way. When they ended and we came upon the narrow strip between the “wailing waters,” as Ian called them, we slowed down, but only slightly. Then, once we were past them, our steps quickened again.
One more tunnel, and we’d be back at the entrance to Phanes’s world—
I stopped and yanked Ian back so hard, his feet skidded out from under him. He recovered without falling, managing to fling me behind him in an admirable, if annoying, display of grace.
“What is it?”
I pushed him away until I was at his side, not his back. “You don’t see them?”
His head swiveled around as he snapped the two severed creatures’ hands up until their claws extended outward like unsheathed knives.
“See what?” he asked tightly.
This couldn’t be a case of diminished vision. The scorpions were right in front of us, big as well-fed lions and twice as vicious, from the way their stingers kept stabbing at the ground as if saying, Come closer, I dare you.
A normal scorpion was no danger to a vampire. But a group of huge netherworld scorpions? I didn’t want to find out what getting stung by one of those would do to us.
“See what?” Ian repeated.
“Half a dozen scorpions bigger than I am,” I said.
A laugh escaped him. “This place is finally getting interesting.”
Phanes had probably flown right over them, if he’d encountered them. Damn him and his useful wings. I tried to fly, hoping it might work now that we were closer to the exit, but no, nothing happened.
Next, I tried to feel for anything that I could rip out of the scorpions since my control over liquids still worked in this place. But whatever was under those glossy amber shells wasn’t liquid, so I came up empty there, too.
“I’ve got nothing,” I said in frustration.
“Don’t fret.” Ian sounded so calm, I envied him. “We’ll treat them like any scorpion, and cut their stingers off.”
“You can’t even see them,” I pointed out.
“You’ll be my eyes.”
Total confidence filled his tone, and the new tightness running through his body was his muscles bunching with anticipation. He was relishing the upcoming fight.
“Are you incapable of being afraid?” I asked with admiring exasperation.
“No.” Now his tone was clipped. “When you vanished with Phanes, and every prophetic feeling I had screamed that you’d die if I didn’t find you, I was terrified.”
One of the scorpions lunged, cutting off any reply I might have made. Time to be his eyes.
“Back two meters, left one!” I shouted.
Ian followed my instructions with lightning swiftness. The scorpion’s stinger missed both of us. Then, Ian watched me as I stared at the creature, waiting for the scorpion’s next move.
“Three meters ahead, one to the right?” Ian whispered, following my gaze.
I nodded without looking away.
“Stinger up or down?”
“Down now, but—”
Ian sprang forward. I tried to snatch him back, but he was too fast. He leapt at the scorpion. It raised its stinger, but it was too slow. Ian landed on its back and spun around to grab the base of the stinger, forcing it forward.
“Strike!”
I swung my cave-crawler weapon. Those sharp claws cleaved all the way through, and the severed stinger fell to the ground. The scorpion’s instant screech felt like it knifed through my brain. The others took it as a battle cry.
Ian twisted off the screeching scorpion. Then, he grabbed it and flipped it on its side, using the creature’s body as a makeshift shield against the others.
Clever, creative, and . . . “Are you crazy?”
He tossed a grin over his shoulder at me. “Since the day we met. Now, less talking and more stinger slicing!”
I did, shouting out instructions for him to raise or lower the scorpion he held according to the onslaught of new stinger attacks. If not for the narrowness of the tunnel, we’d have no chance, but the scorpions couldn’t get behind us to attack from both sides, and they couldn’t get past the screeching bulk of their companion to overrun us from the front.
I’d sliced off three more stingers before I felt a rush of air at my back. Something was coming. Fast. That’s what I got for being smug over the scorpions not being able to attack us from behind! Now, something else was coming.
I swung around . . . and froze.
“What?” Ian demanded, hefting the scorpion’s body as if about to hurl it at the final one with the stinger.
He needn’t have bothered. There was no danger. Probably.
I heard several thwapping sounds, and glanced back. All the scorpions had crumpled. Even the one in Ian’s grasp went limp. For a second, I thought they’d all spontaneously died, and then their heads lifted despite their many-legged bodies staying supine on the ground.
Not dead. No, they were bowing at the tall figure that glided toward us on a stygian river that hadn’t been there moments before.
Ian whistled. “Look who’s down here after all.”
I swallowed, trying to control the myriad of emotions that sprang up inside me.
“Hello, Father.”
Chapter 19
The incarnation of the Eternal River between life and death looked different to everyone since beliefs dictated what you saw. Mencheres had seen Aken, the ancient Egyptian ferryman. Ian had seen the Grim Reaper the first time he met my father; Bones had called him the Angel of Death, and I used to see Dagon because he was both my first god and my greatest fear. Now, however, I simply saw my father.
His skin was deep bronze versus my more golden shade, but his hair was the same silver with gold and blue streaks. His eyes also looked like mine when my other nature took control: piercing silver, and so bright they made it difficult to hold his stare. Not that anyone would want to stare at him for long. His gaze held truths that even the bravest shuddered to know.
“You’re not in chains,” I said, then instantly fought a groan. What a stupid remark. One, Phanes had already told me he’d lied to me, and two, the lack of chains was obvious.
The Warden of the Gateway to the Netherworld didn’t arch his brow. That would be too expressive of him, but he did twitch his brows by the most imperceptible of margins.
“Why would you expect to find me chained in my own domain?”
“Your would-be son-in-law Phanes showed her a vision of you imprisoned down here, so she came to rescue you,” Ian summed up.
That silvery gaze flicked to Ian before landing on me with almost tangible force. I fought the urge to take a step backward. If he wasn’t happy about that news, wait until he found out about the other prison break I’d participated in.
“It was a very convincing vision,” I said. “Phanes knew your real appearance, how I have no idea. Also, you said there would be consequences for you helping Ian, plus you’ve ignored every summons that Ashael and I conjured up. Also, Ashael was unable to find you anywhere else. Put all that together, and I believed Phanes when he said you were being held here against your will, especially when he showed me a
vision supposedly proving it.”
His head tilted; his version of bursting into laughter, probably. “And you came to rescue me?”
“That was the plan,” I said, grinding my teeth against my sudden urge to apologize. I wasn’t wrong for wanting to save my father from torturous imprisonment. If he had anything close to normal emotions, he’d realize that.
He gave me another look that somehow reduced me to a child on the inside despite my vast age. Then, features that were sharply defined and frighteningly handsome eased a bit.
“It is unfortunate that you were susceptible to Phanes’s illusion, but I suppose it is . . . touching that you sought to save me.”
I must still have some acid spray clinging to my face. That was the only reason I’d accept for the new sting in my eyes because I would not cry over such faint praise, even if these were the first quasi-affectionate words I’d ever heard from him.
“Still, two prisoners are now gone, so you have stolen from the dead,” my father said, his voice becoming harder than the jagged walls around us. “And the dead require repayment.”
Damn. Guess he knew about the other prison break after all.
Ian dropped the scorpion’s body and strode over to my father. “She didn’t steal from the dead. Phanes did, so you should be directing your ire at him.”
I almost flew in my haste to get between them. “What Ian means is, there are extenuating circumstances—”
My father pushed me to the side. “Your rash act might protect you from most deaths, should you succeed in absorbing it, but it will not protect you from me,” he told Ian.
What? And, oh, shit, Ian needed to stop pissing him off!
“Spying on me, were you?” Ian said with a gleam in his eye.
“Only because I was seeking her,” my father retorted. “Her repeated summons made me wonder if she was in need. I might not be able to use my abilities to find her, but when I find you, I tend to see her as well.”
Ian let out a harsh laugh. “Then if you saw what I was doing, you should’ve known she was in danger. A better father would have interceded to help her. If you had, I wouldn’t have needed to eat that fruit to come here.”
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