by K.N. Lee
Her heart pounded at the thought of stepping into a dark hall not knowing what lay inside. If she was smart, she’d wait for Jovkovic and help to arrive. She was one human against a coven of demons. But she also had no idea what stage they were at with casting their spell. Hesitation could kill another girl. So, yet again, to do the right thing, she was going to have to pick the less-than-smart option.
She drew the knife at her hip and held it ready in a reverse grip, then opened the door just wide enough to pass. The hall inside was indeed made of an old stone wall and was dark, the only light coming behind her from the stark white staff hall. It was empty — at least as far as she could see — and there was only one direction to go: forward.
She took a tentative step forward and released the snake door. It clicked closed behind and darkness enveloped her.
Her heart pounded harder. She squeezed the hilt of her knife, closed her eyes, and counted to ten to get accustomed to the low light level — praying it was just a low light level and not complete darkness — then opened them.
Ahead, about twenty feet, a hint of pale light shone around the edge of something. She inched closer and found the edge was a thick heavy pillar, carved with shapes that swirled over the entire visible surface, floor to ceiling high above her. Beyond, the illumination was stronger but flickering, as if it came from a flame instead of a steady light source.
She drew closer, and the passage opened up into a five-foot path between stone wall and pillars on the circumference of an enormous cavern with a massive candle-filled chandelier hanging from the center of the domed ceiling. There were twelve pillars in total — the same number needed for a full coven — and in the center of the cavern, standing in a circle in line with the pillars, were black statues of cloaked figures with horns and wings and tails peeking out of their cloaks. They stood inside a circle of runes carved into the floor.
In the middle of the circle of statues, an open brazier filled with glowing embers bathed the chamber in an eerie red light. A pinprick of gold light hovered beside the brazier. It grew in intensity, making her squint, but she refused to look away. With a sharp snap that echoed through the cavern it disappeared, and Azkeel stood beside the brazier. He was transparent, she could see the statues behind him, but within two heartbeats he solidified.
The statue nearest her raised a scaled hand, and she jerked back behind the pillar. What she had assumed were statues were really live and dangerous entities.
“What’s the word?” someone on the other side of the circle asked.
“There’s been—” Azkeel tilted his head to one side and flexed his wings their full length. The tips almost touched the entities on either side of him.
An entity in a white cloak stepped from the shadows near the far wall and strode into the circle. He threw back his hood, revealing serpentine features. “What’s the delay, Avian?”
Azkeel raised a hand, commanding silence, and stepped away from the entity. With a snap, the angel disappeared.
Rowan blinked. One minute Azkeel had been in the circle, the next he was gone. Rumbles and hisses erupted from the entities, but they didn’t break their formation.
Another snap. Behind her. She spun around, and Azkeel seized the front of her coat. “I thought I told you to wait for me at home.”
An invisible weight squeezed against her chest. She gasped for breath, but couldn’t catch it. Black specks clouded her vision, and her knees buckled.
Azkeel hoisted her up, and the collar of her coat choked her. Her toes skimmed the ground but, held up by her coat, she couldn’t get her balance. He spread his wings and brought her close. “I told you to stay at home.”
“I suppose I’m not great at taking orders.”
She slashed at him with her knife, but he shoved her out to arm’s length. The world wrenched around her, and he jerked her higher, her feet fully off the ground.
“More’s the pity.” He tossed her into the cavern.
She tumbled onto her right hip and shoulder and cracked her head on the rock floor. Light and darkness flashed across her vision. She shoved up onto her knees, half blind and dizzy, the knife still in her hand.
The other demons and the brazier were gone. She was in a cave, the only light coming from an electric camp lantern. The magic circle was still carved in the floor, but the runes were rough and uneven.
“You must know your spell isn’t working.” She stood on unsteady legs, her ears ringing.
“That’s because they were impure,” a voice behind her said.
She spun around to face the new threat. Harry stood at the edge of the circle, dressed in a black cloak, a tattered scroll clutched in his hand.
“But Azkeel will save you, Dr. Hill,” the janitor said.
“Save me?” What the hell was he talking about?
“Hand delivered to God,” Azkeel said with a sneer.
He stepped toward her. She shifted position to put both men in her line of sight and raised her hands — one a fist, the other still holding the knife in a reverse grip — ready to fight.
Azkeel laughed. “Do you honestly think that little blade is going to stop me?”
No. But she certainly was going to try. All she really needed was to buy enough time for Jovkovic, in the other-world, to stop the spell — if he was coming at all.
She shoved that thought away. The only way out of this situation was to hope Jovkovic was racing to the entities’ club, because while she was pretty sure she could take Harry, she had doubts about beating Azkeel in a fight alone, let alone while also fighting Harry. Buying time was her only good option. “So what’s the plan? Take demons from your world, save girls in this one?”
“Sorry, dear. But I just don’t have the time to talk.” Azkeel lunged at her.
She sidestepped, swiped at him with the knife, and nicked his ribs. With a hiss, he buffeted her with his wings and threw her off balance. She stumbled, and he punched at her head, but she jerked away. His knuckles grazed her cheek, drawing a flash of stinging pain. She ground her teeth against it, twisted, and rammed her fist into his gut. He grunted, and she lunged in with her knife, slicing his thigh.
Behind her, Harry screamed. From the corner of her eyes, she glimpsed his meaty form rushing toward her. She wrenched to the side and his hands slipped past her. She kicked him in the side and shoved him back.
Azkeel grabbed her arm and yanked her back to face him. She spun into the movement, flipped her grip on the knife, and jabbed it at his gut. He knocked her strike out of the way and swiped at her with his wing. She ducked under and slammed her heel into his knee. He dropped to that knee, and she lunged in, driving her knife for his heart.
He blocked the strike, driving the blade into his side, seized her wrist with one hand, and punched her in the face with the other. Crack. White hot pain shot through her nose and made her eyes water.
She wrenched against his grip and twisted the knife in his side. He growled, his grip on her wrist tightened, and he slammed his fist into her face again. Pain exploded over her head and the cavern vanished into darkness.
50
When Rowan woke, agony pulsed through her face and a crust on her upper lip had the metallic tang of blood. She lay on her back in the cavern lit with the blue-white light of the camp lantern, which meant she was still in her world. Her hands, bound with a rope above her head, were tied to a metal ring anchored to the floor. Harry, now enveloped in a thick black cloak, sat beside her in the lotus position, his expression placid. The open scroll beside him was old, the paper yellow and the edges crumbling away. The scrap of paper with the hint of text that had been found on the first murdered girl had to have come from it.
She rolled over, the rope twisting against the metal ring and digging into her wrist, and squirmed up onto her knees. The movement pounded painfully through her broken nose.
Harry watched her, but his expression didn’t change and he didn’t move. “You’ll be saved, Ms. Hill. The angel will save you.”
> “I’m, ah—” She pulled at the rope. The knot was tight, and the metal ring secure in the floor. “I’m not sure I’m worthy of the honor.”
Harry drew the hood of his cloak over his head. “You will be saved and given a new life, or you will go to hell.”
Great. It was always the silent types. She’d never imagined the quiet, shy janitor of St. Anne’s College would be an insane maniac who’d made a deal with an Avian demon who was posing as an angel who craved human adoration. Jeez, even just thinking it sounded crazy. Demons, world-walking. She wished it was a dream, but three girls had been murdered, and Rowan was about to become the fourth.
She fought the urge to wrench at her bonds again. It wouldn’t help and might agitate Harry — although he looked like he’d taken or smoked something and was riding a stoned high. What she needed was a plan. Her knife was gone. Either Harry had it, Azkeel had taken it, or it was somewhere in the shadows of the cavern. Which meant she had no way of getting free and out of the circle.
Panic seized her, and her heart pounded, fast and hard. She didn’t want to die like those girls had. Their chests had been ripped open from the inside out, from the demon in Azkeel’s world trying to claw its way out of the girl-vessel in her world. Azkeel had convinced a demon coven that they could cast the world-walking spell and reach her world. They didn’t know he was doing it so that in the future, he could show up in her world and save the possessed girls, winning the human adoration he craved. They also didn’t know that neither demon nor girl had yet managed to survive the process.
Azkeel wasn’t going to stop until a demon successfully world-walked, and he could complete his plan. If she died, there was no way of telling how many more girls would be murdered before one became possessed instead of being ripped apart. No one in her world knew Harry was the murderer. He hadn’t left any forensic evidence, and her boss, Agent Brown, didn’t know about this cavern—wherever this cavern was.
Rowan twisted her wrists, trying to find an angle where she could slip a hand free and glanced at Harry. His eyes were closed as he whispered a chant in mispronounced Latin. The rope dug into her skin, too tight to slip free even if she dislocated her thumb.
“Stop squirming,” Harry said, his eyes still shut.
The hell she would. Except the demon coven in the other-world was about to cast the spell and she was running out of time. She needed a new plan, and she needed to calm the hell down. She drew in a quick breath. Just focus. “Don’t I have to prepare, or meditate, or something?”
“You’ve had your entire life to prepare. Besides, there’s no more time to remove the vestiges of your old life.”
Vestiges? The remains of—
Her heart stuttered again and she pushed back on her fear. All the murdered girls had been found naked and wrapped in a sheet. Well, small blessings for not meeting her doom in the buff.
A shiver swept through her, flexing her muscles. There was something tight around her right calf. Right, the leg sheath. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten it, except she’d never worn one before and there were a lot of other pressing and imminent things to worry about. If she was lucky, Azkeel and Harry hadn’t searched her, and the knife was still there.
She shifted, keeping her attention locked on Harry, praying he’d keep his eyes closed, and twisted her body to bring her calf up beside her hands. Her forearm brushed the hard bump of the knife’s hilt beneath her pant leg and relief swept through her then burst into renewed fear. The knife was still there. There was hope, if she didn’t screw it up.
Harry rose to his knees and Rowan’s heart stalled. She froze, praying he wouldn’t open his eyes and notice she was reaching for her leg. He raised his face to the ceiling, eyes still shut, and yelled the mispronounced Latin while swaying back and forth. This couldn’t be a good sign. It had to mean he was getting close to the climax of the ritual. Whatever she was going to do, she needed to do it soon.
She twisted to reach the hilt and shoved her pant leg up. Adrenaline pounded through her, making her hand shake. She tightened her grip on the knife and eased her leg back, sliding the knife free.
Harry yelled and an invisible weight slammed into her chest. She screamed, agony racing through her. Holy shit!
The weight pounded into her again, drawing another scream, and black specks flashed across her sight. Harry blurred, multiplied, then returned to focus. Blood roared in her ears, and the world whizzed around her. Her fingers went numb and she prayed she still held onto the knife.
Harry yelled the Latin again. He rose to his feet, his arms stretched up, his eyes still squeezed tight. She fought to draw a breath but couldn’t make her lungs work past the pressure and pain. Harry blurred and multiplied again, then horns flickered into sight, poking out from under the hood.
Icy fear sliced through the agony. It wasn’t Harry with horns. It was an entity in the other-world. The world-walking spell was happening right now. Azkeel stood beside her, his gaze locked on Harry. Beside him was the serpentine entity in the white cloak.
She pressed the blade’s edge to the rope binding her hands to the metal ring in the floor, but her fingers were too numb and she couldn’t get a good angle to create enough pressure to cut it.
Her mind screamed at her. She knew what she had to do but couldn’t make her body do it. Another wave of dizziness surged over her, and she was back with Harry. Beside him were the shadowy forms of the demon coven in the other-world, jumping in and out of focus.
Her stomach churned, and she clenched her jaw against the nausea. She drew the knife against the rope again, back and forth. Faster. Faster!
The spell crushed her chest and jerked her back and forth between worlds, stretching her limbs, her essence between them. She was being pulled apart, her soul filled with searing agony. And then there was someone else with her, drawing her too-thin essence into a gray place between her world and Azkeel’s. The other was dark, sticky with something that she couldn’t call anything but evil. It clawed against the shadow of her being, digging rents within her, searching for a purchase inside her.
She writhed, unable to escape, trapped in the gray nothing, her essence transparent. The cloaked demons and Azkeel solidified around her. She forced her attention on the rope, working the knife faster. Escape was the only way out of this. The only way to survive.
Someone growled. She glanced up, and Azkeel kicked the knife from her hands. It skidded across the floor, out of reach. He kicked at her again, and she twisted, trying to get out of the way. But there was nowhere to go. She was still tied to the floor. His foot slammed into her ribs, knocking her to her side. Pain cracked through her chest and her breath vanished.
He kicked again, and she wrenched her legs up, blocking the strike. He staggered, off balance, and his wings swept out behind him. She wrapped her legs around his, twisted, and wrenched him over.
The world snapped, and a gray limbo exploded around them. Azkeel wrenched back, his expression stunned. Above them, a black demon soul, with more teeth and claws than body, swept through the thick mist surrounding them. It dove at Rowan, clawing and biting at her chest. Pain sliced through her, but it couldn’t sink into her skin. It howled and whooshed back into the air.
The press and pull of both worlds on Rowan was gone, and all that remained was a fuzzy, immaterial gray. Her skin tingled and light flared around Azkeel’s heart then died. It flared again. Still nothing happened.
He grabbed her chin and jerked her head up, shooting pain through her face. “How—? You stupid bitch. You’ve trapped me here.” He drew back to hit her and she kicked at his legs again, but he twisted out of the way and his grip on her face tightened.
“Better here than allowed to run free,” she growled.
He smashed her head against the misty floor that felt a lot like the stone floor of the cavern. Light sparked across her vision and the black demon soul screamed above her. It dove at her again, clawing at her chest, slicing into her too-thin essence, but wrenched away aga
in, howling in frustration.
“You don’t get it. We’re in the space between worlds, and if I can’t leave, you can’t. You’re not powerful enough.”
Light exploded around him, making her eyes water. She wrenched against his grip and the rope binding her wrists to the metal ring.
He howled and the light intensified. “You’re not strong enough.”
He slammed her head against the floor again. The gray world wrenched and twisted. Buzzing filled her head, and pain screamed through her body. It exploded around her heart and the demon soul speared into her. The power of the demon coven’s spell surged through her veins, searing as if her blood had turned to molten lava.
She threw her head back and screamed and blinding light poured from her mouth. Beside her, a single cloaked figure gasped. Above her, Azkeel became immaterial, his eyes wide, his mouth stretched in a silent, ferocious howl. He pounded on the floor through her, but she didn’t feel it. She wasn’t there anymore.
Then, as if he were no more than smoke and shadow, he melted into the darkness. She’d escaped the gray nothing. She had no idea how she’d managed and Azkeel hadn’t — she doubted she was a more powerful world-walker — but she wasn’t going to question the gift of fate.
And she never wanted to do that again.
Harry threw back his hood and drew a long curved blade from inside his cloak. He gazed into her eyes, his expression filled with hope and fear, and waved the blade before her.
“The moment of truth. You, the chosen one, have been filled with the essence of God. If you are worthy, you will survive the trial. Blessed be the divine wisdom of God.” He cut the rope around her hands and scrambled back.
She rubbed her wrists and sucked in a slow breath. She didn’t feel any different, maybe a little beaten and bruised.
All right, a lot beaten and bruised.
She thought of the demon soul digging at her, trying to get in. Had it entered her? Would she even know? She didn’t feel like clawing something out of her. Yet now that she thought about it, her skin still tingled.