“What the fuck?” I muttered as I released Aisling’s hand to press both my palms against what should be wide open space.
Corson swore when he stepped forward and his fingers brushed up against the same, unseen wall. His talons burst from the back of his hand, and when he pulled back his fist to plunge them into the barrier, they came to a stop against the wall.
I pulled Aisling closer to me as Lix and Bale moved further away in opposite directions; they kept their hands out as they followed the curve of the barrier. I pulled back my hand to slam it against the invisible wall, but lowered it. If Corson’s talons couldn’t slice through it, my hand wouldn’t do any good. Bale and Lix were a good hundred feet away from us and still feeling along the barrier.
We were trapped here.
“The beast won’t let you leave once you enter,” a tiny voice said from behind us.
My hands fisted as I spun toward the voice. I was prepared to kill anyone and everyone I encountered until I saw the boy. He was about three or four years old and held a blanket against his cheek while sucking his thumb. His disheveled brown hair hung into the corners of his blue eyes.
“What did you say?” Wren asked as Bale and Lix stalked back to us.
The boy scanned all of us before he pulled his thumb from his mouth and pointed at Lix. “What is he?”
“I’m a skellein,” Lix answered. “What did you say about a beast?”
“The beast doesn’t let us go free,” the boy whispered.
He glanced anxiously toward the mountain; over the top of the houses, the entrance to the cave was visible. Pushed back from each side of the entrance were piles of boulders and a good fifty feet separated the shadowed interior from the carts. I’d never seen a mining cave before, but the stones outside the entrance seemed out of place. I assumed those would have been cleared away, but what did I know?
When the boy turned back to us, his eyes were wide over his blanket. “The beast eats us.”
I edged closer to Aisling; I’d destroy this whole town before I let anything happen to her. Aisling stepped out from behind me and walked over and knelt in front of the boy. I kept my eyes on the town as I followed her over to the boy.
“Where are your parents?” she asked.
The boy’s eyes filled with tears, and he stuck his thumb back in his mouth. Aisling rested a hand against his cheek as another woman ran around the corner of the building and skidded to a halt when she spotted the boy.
“Oliver,” she breathed and ran for the boy at the same time Wren blurted, “Nadine!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hawk
The name Nadine tickled something at the back of my memory, but I couldn’t quite place it. With her brown hair, slender build, and gently lined face, she didn’t look familiar, but Wren knew her. Nadine’s head turned toward Wren, and she stopped her heedless rush toward the boy, and her mouth fell open. Her hazel eyes filled with tears, and a radiant smile lit her face.
With tears streaming down her face, Wren rushed forward and embraced the woman. I looked to Corson for an answer, but he was smiling at them while Bale and Lix remained focused on the mountain.
“Wren,” Nadine breathed as she stepped back to wipe the tears from her eyes. Then her elation vanished. “Oh, Wren, you shouldn’t be here!”
“It’s already too late.”
Nadine’s lower lip quivered, and she rested her hand on Oliver’s shoulder when he tottered over to stand beside her.
“Where’s Randy?” Wren asked.
Suddenly the memory of where I heard Nadine’s name clicked into place. After the gateway opened, demons murdered Wren’s parents. Randy found and raised her, and he later married a woman named Nadine. Before we started working with Wren, Randy and Nadine had split off to travel deeper into the Wilds in the hopes of mapping out more land and finding somewhere safer for everyone to live.
“He’s okay, and he’s here. Right now, he’s helping me look for this little troublemaker,” Nadine said and lifted Oliver’s hand.
“Oh, thank God,” Wren said and wiped the tears from her eyes.
Nadine gripped Wren’s wrist and squeezed it. “Why are you here?”
“We were following the horsemen.”
Nadine blinked at her. “The horsemen… of the apocalypse?”
“We have a lot to catch up on,” Wren said, and removing Nadine’s hand from her wrist, she hooked her arm through Nadine’s and turned toward us. “But first I’d like you to meet Corson, Bale, Lix, Hawk, and Aisling. Everyone, this is Nadine, she helped raise me.”
If Nadine was shocked to discover Wren working so closely with demons, she hid it well as she smiled at us. Before Wren approached Kobal about working together, the Wilders kept their distance and much preferred to slaughter any demon they came across.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Corson said and held out his hand.
Nadine didn’t hesitate before taking it. “I wish it was under better circumstances.” She released Corson’s hand and turned to Wren. She smiled as she brushed back a strand of hair from Wren’s forehead. “Randy is going to be so happy to see you, even if it is in this place.”
She released Wren and lifted Oliver into her arms. The boy sucked his thumb as he studied us. Those big, soulful blue eyes had far too much wisdom in them for someone of his tender years. Without thinking, I rested my hand on his back as I smiled at him. He smiled back and laid his head on Nadine’s shoulder while I lowered my hand.
“What is going on here?” Wren asked.
“I’ll explain when we find Randy,” Nadine said. “Come with me.”
She started to walk away, but a voice behind us halted her.
“Hey,” Caim said as he strolled toward us. “Have you—”
“Stop!” Bale commanded. “Don’t take another step.”
Caim froze with his foot in midair. One of the hounds emerged from the shadows and edged toward the invisible barrier.
“Partka,” Corson commanded the hound.
He didn’t have to tell it to stay as the hound stopped before the barrier and sniffed the edge of it. Its hackles rose, and it bared its teeth before it sat.
“What do we have here?” Caim asked as he lowered his foot and placed his hand on the hound’s head. “I don’t see anything.”
“Neither do we,” Corson said. “And you can walk freely toward us, but we can’t get out of here.”
“Well, isn’t that just a ‘fuck me’ kind of day,” Caim murmured.
“I guess that would be the best way to describe it,” Corson said. “I wouldn’t risk flying over the town either.”
“I already have,” Caim said. “I didn’t miraculously know the town was here before I told you about it.”
If Corson could have gotten through the barrier, I think he would have choked him. “I would suggest not flying over it again,” Corson grated through his teeth. “Maybe there’s no barrier over the top of the town, or maybe you got lucky and missed it.”
Caim tapped his chin as he pondered this. “I am a lucky sort of fellow.”
“We need you outside the barrier,” Corson grated through his teeth.
Caim lowered his foot and saluted him. “Whatever you say, boss.”
“And keep the hounds with you.”
Caim glanced at the hound by his side. “I don’t think they have any interest in joining you.”
“Come on,” Corson said and turned away from Caim.
“Is that a fallen angel?” Nadine whispered as she led us around the side of the building.
“He’s more like an annoying pigeon,” Corson muttered, and I laughed.
When Corson shot me a look, I shrugged as I clasped Aisling’s elbow. “He had a point, and he’s our annoying pigeon.”
“Did he lead you here on purpose?” Nadine asked.
If she’d asked that question a year ago, I would have said probably, but I knew better now. Caim was a little crazy, a whole lot annoying sometimes, but he was on
our side.
“No,” Corson said. “He didn’t know we wouldn’t be able to leave this town once we entered. I want to choke him most of the time, but he’s a loyal asshole.”
“Just not loyal to Lucifer,” Aisling said.
“He wouldn’t be loyal to us either if we decided to destroy the world,” I said. “He’s loyal to life, people, and the continuation of the world. He didn’t fall far enough to rid himself of that allegiance.”
* * *
Aisling
I grasped the mug of water Lix set on the table in front of me. “There’s no alcohol in this place,” he muttered as he took the chair across from me.
“Are you going to survive not having it?” Corson asked.
“I’m not sure any of us are going to survive this,” Lix replied.
I wasn’t much of a drinker, but I suddenly wished the potent mjéod was filling my mug instead of water. Glancing around the barroom, I wasn’t surprised to find it full of demons and humans. Even without alcohol, a bar was a social place, and people and demons wanted to be where other people and demons were.
Most of them drew closer to us as their curiosity attracted them to the newcomers. The sympathetic looks on their faces set my teeth on edge. I had no idea what was going on here, but they all acted like we were as good as dead. Even the ones who sat on the barstools thirty feet away were turned with their backs to the bar so they could give us sympathetic looks.
Studying the humans, I didn’t see anything threatening about them, and their souls were what I was used to seeing. They had good, strong souls, but fear made people do crazy things and there was a lot of fear in this town.
The middle of the room was filled with tables and chairs while booths lined the outer wood-paneled wall. The bar was on the wall furthest to the left, but no bottles lined the shelves, and nothing remained of the glass in the mirror frame hanging behind the shelves. The windows at the front of the building were dirty, but the sun’s rays illuminated the room as there was no electricity.
Antlers made up the lamps hanging overhead; spiders had turned them into their jungle gym. The layer of dust on the lamps was so thick it was impossible to tell if there was once any color to them. Square and rectangle patches of darker wood revealed where pictures once hung, but those pictures were all gone.
Randy sat to my right with Nadine and Wren beside him. Brushed back from his handsome face, Randy’s sandy blond hair was graying at the temples. His warm brown eyes were full of love as he spoke with Wren. The warmth and strength of his soul made me smile while Nadine’s gave me a sense of comfort.
The three of them were eagerly catching each other up on the details of their lives. Wren had revealed she was a demon now and Corson’s Chosen, she told them about something called the Abyss, the horsemen, the fallen angels, and the battle at the wall. Everyone in the room hung on her every word.
The most shock Randy and Nadine revealed was over her and Corson; they kept glancing between the two of them as if they couldn’t believe it. Wren tapped her fingers on the table, shifted in her seat, and pulled at the collar of her shirt as she revealed this detail.
Corson clasped one of her hands and held it on the table, but it did little to calm her. The glimmer in his orange eyes said he would kill Randy if he hurt Wren.
“I had no choice but to go to the demons,” Wren blurted. “I needed their help to protect us after the seals fell.”
Randy rested his hand on top of the one drumming against the table. “I would have done the same. Things have changed a lot since we last saw each other.”
Some of the tension eased from Wren’s shoulders, and when her head bowed, Corson rubbed her neck.
“You did the right thing, Wren,” Randy assured her and squeezed her hand before releasing it.
She smiled at him and relaxed further into Corson’s touch. “Did you make it all the way across the Wilds?” she asked Randy.
“We did,” Randy said as he grasped Nadine’s hand.
“And?” Wren prompted.
The sad look on his face said what he’d discovered there before he spoke. “And we mapped out more of the land and know where batches of demons have clustered, but we didn’t discover anywhere safer for the Wilders to live. We made it to the wall in California before deciding it was time to return home. That was when we got trapped here.”
“How long have you been trapped here?” Wren asked.
“Almost a month,” Nadine said.
“What trapped you here?” Corson asked.
“The minotaur,” Randy said.
“I thought so.” Lix sighed as he uncapped his flask and took a swig. When he finished, he shook the last few drops into his mouth before recapping it and setting it on the table. “It’s a bad time to run out of alcohol.”
I stared at the sunlight shining off the surface of the flask as I processed Randy’s words.
“The minotaur as in the labyrinth minotaur?” Hawk asked.
“That’s what it looks like,” Randy said.
“That’s what it is,” one of the demons said. “I know the minotaur; I’ve seen its pictures on the caves in Hell, and it’s here.”
“The minotaur was behind seal one hundred twenty-six,” Corson said, and his gaze went to the doorway. “Humans got some of its story correct, but instead of the labyrinth being created to house the minotaur, it created the labyrinth to trap and hunt its prey.”
“Wonderful,” Wren muttered.
“This town is its holding pen, and its maze is in the mountain, or at least that’s what we assume. It comes down to hunt at night and takes its captives up to the mine,” another demon said.
Bale sat with her back ramrod straight and her eyes on the door. “It only comes down to hunt at night?”
“Yes,” Randy said.
“How often?”
“It’s always different,” the same demon said as he ran a hand through his blue hair. “I’ve been here for three months, and it’s never come down at regular intervals, which is why we think its maze is in the mountain. We think it turns its prey loose to hunt through the labyrinth, and some prey takes longer than others to catch.”
“I’d say that’s a good assumption,” Corson said. “Why don’t you all group together to fight it?”
“We do,” Randy said. “Every time it comes down, we try to fight it, but we haven’t found a way to stop it.”
“It barges in here, we fight it, sometimes someone ends up dead, and it still takes who it wants,” another demon with two tusks curling like a handlebar mustache out of the side of his face said. “Sometimes, it takes multiple people and demons back to its lair. The selection is completely random too. We’ve seen it take people and demons who arrive that day and others who have been here for months. It doesn’t care about sex or age, human or demon. It randomly decides who it’s going to play with next before taking them away.”
“With no pattern, its harder to anticipate its movements,” Bale murmured.
“I can anticipate slicing its head off,” Lix stated as he tapped the handle of his sword.
“I’ve come across many creatures in Hell and more of them since the seals fell,” the blue-haired demon said, “but nothing like this. The thing’s a ten-foot-tall, unstoppable beast.”
“It has to have a weakness,” Hawk insisted.
They all looked at each other, and most shook their heads while a few shrugged.
“It doesn’t like fire,” a man said. “But fire doesn’t stop it.”
“Great,” Hawk muttered.
Nadine glanced at where Oliver sat in the corner tossing a ball back and forth with a demon who had two clear horns on his head. Nadine leaned over the table and cast her voice low. “It took Oliver’s mother a couple of weeks ago and his father before we arrived here. We’ve been taking care of him, and he’ll stay with us if we ever get out of this, but if that thing comes for him…”
Her voice trailed off as tears filled her eyes. Randy took her hand and
lowered it into his lap. A sense of panic clawed at my chest while I watched the beautiful boy giggle and toss the ball back.
Despite everything he’d been through, joy still radiated from his glowing, white soul. There was little hope in this world, but Oliver offered so much of it. He was the future and I didn’t care what I had to do, I would make sure he survived this.
“We won’t let that happen,” Hawk said.
“Why didn’t you put up signs or set guards to warn people away from this place?” I asked.
“We have put up signs,” Tusks said. “But the beast tears them down, and there is too much land to cover to place guards all over town. There are still some signs left on the other side of town, and we were going to place more up today, but you arrived before we could.”
Lucky for us.
“What about blowing up the entrance to the mountain and caging it in?” I asked.
“We tried that,” Randy said. “It dug itself out again.”
“That’s why there are boulders on either side of the mine,” Hawk said. “I thought it was strange.”
“That’s why,” Randy confirmed. “We blocked the entrance two weeks ago, but we still couldn’t escape the barrier and even with the entrance covered, the minotaur found a way into town and took a woman.”
“So there’s at least one other exit from the mountain,” Bale said.
“Yes,” Tusks said. “And it’s outside of the barrier as we went up the mountain to search for it, but couldn’t get beyond the wall.”
“It’s created a labyrinth within the mountain,” Corson said. “And it’s given its prey a chance to escape.”
“How many do you think have made it out?” Bale asked.
“Probably no one, but there’s a way out.”
Lix pulled his sword from its sheath and set the blade on the table. “Killing the beast is another way out.”
“And if fighting doesn’t work?” Hawk asked.
“It doesn’t,” Tusks muttered.
“I’m not dying in this place,” Lix said.
“Neither am I.” Bale’s chair skidded across the battered wooden floor as she rose and walked over to the door. She opened it to stare at the mountain. “We’re going to kill it.”
Kiss of Death: Hell on Earth Series, Book 3 Page 17