“How many fingers?” she asked, holding up her hand.
Two, Samiel signed, looking sheepish, as we crowded around him. What happened?
Nathaniel placed me on my feet. Beezle climbed up to my shoulder and settled in. Nathaniel walked toward the sharp edge where the snow ended and the wasteland began. He reached toward the space, palm out. And was stopped.
“There is a wall here,” Nathaniel said.
“There, see, you aren’t a klutz,” Chloe soothed Samiel. “There was a wall there. What’s a wall doing there?”
“This is a faerie kingdom,” J.B. said. “You didn’t think it would be easy for us to leave, did you?”
“We were chased by a spriggan and a horde of harpies. You call that easy?” Chloe asked.
“Easy is a relative concept,” I said, thinking of the Maze and the Hob and all of the other horrible faerie things I’d encountered.
I joined Nathaniel by the wall, and J.B. followed me, standing on my other side.
“What do you think?” I asked. “Could we take it down with magic?”
“You could, I’m sure,” Beezle said. “Just make with the explodey-thing.”
“Possibly,” J.B. said. “But it would likely be difficult and draining, and there’s a very good chance that the wall will make sure that anyone who tries to destroy it will pay the price.”
“Maddy might just blast the whole thing into oblivion, including any booby traps,” Beezle said.
“And us, too?” J.B. said. “If she unleashes that much power at such a close range, it’s unlikely to be good for any of us. And there’s still no guarantee it would work.”
“What can we do, then?” I said, looking through to the wastes on the other side. They were so frustratingly close. “Tunnel under?”
Nathaniel shook his head. “It will be like this world is encased in a snow globe. If you tunnel under, you will still find the same barrier.”
“Well, there’s got to be a way out,” I said.
“Not necessarily,” J.B. said. “Usually when creatures come and go from this land, they have the power to transport themselves across dimensions, or are at the very least accompanied by someone who does.”
“I refuse to believe that we are going to be stuck in this godforsaken place because of a piece of glass,” I said.
I stared at the barrier, trying to will it to come down, and that was when I noticed it. There was a cave on the other side of the wall. I glanced back at the cave that was beside the place where Samiel had landed, and then to the other side again. The two openings were mirror images of each other.
“That’s the way out,” I said, pointing at the cave on the wasteland side.
J.B. followed my gaze, and then looked over at the cave on our side. He nodded. “You’re probably right. It’s got the feeling of a faerie solution.”
“That means that the cavern will be some kind of obstacle course or proving ground,” Nathaniel said.
“Of course,” I said. “Nothing is easy, especially when faeries are involved.”
“Hey,” J.B. said mildly.
“You’re only half-faerie,” I said. And nothing is ever easy with you, either, I thought, but I didn’t say it aloud.
We walked back to the others and explained what I had found.
I’m willing to try it, Samiel said.
“Sure, why not?” Chloe said. “It’s not like I’m claustrophobic or anything.”
“You’re claustrophobic and you work in that little room every day?” I asked.
“I have all the light I want in there,” Chloe said, her breath visible in the cold air. “That’s not going to be the case in here.”
We all paused at the mouth of the cave. A current of warmth came from the interior. It should have felt comforting, especially in the bitter cold, but it didn’t. It felt like standing near the mouth of a dragon that’s about to make you his dinner.
“This could be a trap,” J.B. said.
“I’ve already considered the possibility,” I said. “The only other option is to go back, and we know there’s nothing for us in that direction.”
“Heigh-ho, then,” Beezle said. “No time like the present.”
I stepped into the darkness.
13
AS SOON AS I STEPPED INSIDE I FELT SOMETHING inside me go black, like it was being smothered, and I realized it was my magic.
“Wait!” I said to the others, but they were already beside me. “Am I the only one who can’t access their powers?”
“No,” Nathaniel said, his voice grim.
His answer was echoed all around, Jude included.
“I’ve turned back into a human,” he growled.
The darkness was absolute, and the sounds of the wind howling outside had ceased as soon as we entered the cave. I could hear a drip of water, and the harsh breath of everyone else.
“Okay,” I said, thinking hard. “I’ve got my sword, and so does Nathaniel. Does anyone else have a weapon?”
“I’ve got the little knife, and some bobby pins in my pocket. Somewhere,” Chloe said.
“I’ll take that as a no,” I said. “We can’t make nightfire to see. And I bet we can’t get out of the cave now that we’ve gone in.”
“No,” Jude said. “I already checked.”
“So we’ve got to go forward,” I said.
Part of me had expected something like this. Faeries loved their games, and they didn’t like you to have advantages. It was more fun for them if you lost.
“I don’t want to lose anyone in the dark,” I said. “So everyone chain up. I’ll go in front, and Nathaniel in the back since we’re the only ones with weapons.”
“I will go in front,” Nathaniel said.
“Don’t try to be a man,” I said. “I can swing a sword just as easily as you can.”
“I’d prefer if Nathaniel went in front, too,” Beezle said. “I don’t want to be the first in line when some slavering monster appears out of the darkness.”
“Then go sit on Samiel’s shoulder,” I said. “Because I’m going first.”
“I would, if I could find Samiel,” Beezle said.
There was no way in hell I was letting anyone else take the fall. That had happened twice now. First Gabriel had taken the sword that was probably meant for me. And then J.B. had taken Titania’s abuse. No one was standing in front of me anymore, no matter how much it hurt their masculine pride.
“Madeline,” Nathaniel began.
“No,” I said. “You will trust me.”
“There’s no reason for…”
“There’s every reason,” I said, and my tone said that we were done discussing the matter.
I groped in the darkness for the hand of the person nearest me, and Jude was there.
“I’m right next to you, Agent,” he said to Chloe.
There was a rustling as everyone formed in a line. I drew my sword carefully and found that the darkness was not absolute. There was a very faint silver gleam as the blade was revealed.
“It would be helpful if you would light up like you did in the Maze,” I said to the sword.
Nothing. Not even an answering wiggle from the snake tattoo on my palm.
“Who are you talking to?” Jude asked.
“My sword,” I said.
“Don’t ask,” Beezle said. “You’ll just get an answer you don’t want to hear.”
I slid forward as quietly as I could, my hand slick with sweat in Jude’s grip. The others followed.
There is nothing quite like moving in the dark. Your eye creates shadows and movement where there is none. Your mind fills in the black space with nightmares. And all around you, the darkness is like a living thing, pressing on you, making you fear, making you doubt.
I’d spent more than my fair share of time in darkness lately. Maybe one day I’d go to the Caribbean and lie in the sun until all of the dark was burned away.
Do you think Lucifer will ever let you do that? I thought. Do you think h
e’ll let you go now that he has you so close to his grasp?
I already knew the answer to that. The darkness would be with me forever, and no amount of sunshine would ever light those shadowed places again. That was Lucifer’s gift to me—the power of the stars and the universe, cloaked in the black emptiness of space.
We had been walking for some time without incident when I heard Chloe. Her breath had been coming faster and louder gradually, and now she sounded like she was hyperventilating. Samiel must have tried to comfort her because she said, “Not helping. Not helping at all.”
“What’s the matter?” I said.
“I can’t breathe,” she said, sounding strained. “I can’t get enough air in here.”
“You can,” I said, trying to cut through her panic by being firm. “There’s plenty of air.”
“There’s not,” she moaned. “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe!”
“She’s having a panic attack,” J.B. said, and there was the sound of a struggle.
Jude let go of my hand.
“Hey, don’t let go,” I said.
“I have to get out of here, I have to get out, I have to,” Chloe said.
“Hold her still!” J.B. said.
Sheathing my sword so I wouldn’t accidentally stab anyone in the dark, I turned on the spot and reached out in front of me, trying to find the others by sound.
“Get ahold of yourself, girl,” Jude growled.
Jude, J.B., Nathaniel, Samiel and Chloe were nothing but shadows moving in the dark, formless, indistinct. My hand touched someone’s shoulder, but before I could figure out whose it was, I was decked in the face by Chloe’s flailing arms. I staggered backward, hearing J.B. grunt as Chloe hit him, too.
Chloe seemed to lose more control as the moments passed. Her words ceased to have meaning and instead turned into a low keening noise. None of the men was able to get hold of her. A second later, she bolted.
I felt and heard her go by rather than saw. Her boots crunched in the dirt of the cave floor, and her moan trailed behind her as she ran.
“Chloe!” I shouted, and scrambled after her.
“Don’t go haring off after her, idiot!” Beezle said.
Samiel shot past me, nothing more than a sense of a body moving in space. I knew it was him because he didn’t call her name. I ran behind both of them, deeper into the black.
“Maddy, wait!” J.B. cried.
I should have waited. That was the whole point of the chain, so that we would not lose one another in the darkness. But all I could think was that Chloe was panicking, and Samiel couldn’t call us if he needed help.
Then Chloe screamed, and my blood ran cold.
“Chloe!” I called, running harder. Beezle dug his claws into my shoulder so he wouldn’t fall off.
She screamed again, and it sounded farther away—much farther than she should have been able to run.
“It sounds like something’s carrying her away,” Beezle said.
“I know,” I said.
The rest of the guys were running behind me and soon caught up. We were sprinting together like a pack, me in the center, J.B. and Nathaniel on each side, and Jude behind. The cave tilted downward, and there was a faint illumination ahead.
“Chloe! Samiel!” I called.
“Samiel can’t answer you,” Beezle said.
“I’m hoping he’ll come back to us,” I said.
“He won’t come back if his woman is in danger,” Jude said.
“What’s that ahead?” J.B. asked. “I can see some kind of halo.”
“The walls of the cave are lit,” Nathaniel said.
The cave was gradually getting brighter, the walls shot through with twinkling veins of luminescence. It was a tremendous relief to be out of the suffocating dark.
It was less of a relief when we came to the place where the cave was split.
“Great,” I said, looking at the two identical paths. “How are we supposed to know which way they went?”
Jude sniffed the air. His nose wasn’t quite as good when he was in human form, but it was still better than an ordinary person’s.
“Samiel went this way,” he said, pointing toward the right-hand cave. He then pointed to the other tunnel. “Chloe and some kind of reptile-mammalian thing went that way.”
“Reptile-mammalian thing?” Beezle said.
“I don’t know what it is, but that’s what it smells like,” Jude said.
“I don’t want to meet anything that fell off two branches of the evolutionary tree,” Beezle said. “Let’s go away from the multispecies monster.”
I was less worried about the reptile-mammalian thing than I was about the fact that Samiel and Chloe had entered different passages.
“We have two choices,” I said. “We can all stay together and go after Chloe, then come back here to try and find Samiel after we retrieve her.”
“And the second option is that we divide forces,” Nathaniel said. “The answer is no.”
“I second that,” J.B. said.
“It’s impractical for us to move like one big amoeba and leave Samiel alone,” I said.
“I’ll go after Samiel,” Jude said. “And then I’ll find you. I can follow your scent easily enough.”
“Thank you,” I said, keeping my eyes firmly on his face. His clothes were somewhere in the woods. “I’m going after Chloe. You can go with him or go with me,” I said to the other two, and I started jogging down the tunnel on the left side.
“I don’t think it’s good for you to be friends with Jude,” Beezle said. “He enables your bad decisions.”
“No,” I said. “Jude trusts me, which is more than I can say for anyone else.”
“I trust you,” J.B said, running up on my left.
“You just don’t think I can do anything without you there to keep me safe. And that’s what Nathaniel thinks, too,” I said, as the angel silently joined us. He ignored my jibe. “Nothing to say?”
“A wise man knows when to keep his own counsel,” Nathaniel said.
“And you know that nothing you say will stop her, anyway,” Beezle said. “Wait—I just realized we went down the tunnel of the freaky combination animal thing. I don’t want to go down this tunnel. I want to go with Jude.”
“Too late,” I said with a lightness I did not feel. The monster could be eating Chloe right now. “Look at it this way. You’ll be able to see something very few have ever seen.”
“That’s because they’re not alive to tell us about it,” Beezle muttered. “You know, I’m not much of a let’s-make-discoveries-for-science gargoyle. I’m more of a watching-science-on-TV-while-eating-pan-fried-noodles gargoyle.”
The cave was lit by the same trails of light that were in the main passage. After a while I noticed that the walls were also covered in some kind of white fluid, and that my boots were no longer crunching over rock. The ground was covered in the same goop.
Beezle noticed it the same time I did. “Once you start seeing viscous liquid, it’s time to turn around before you get put inside a cocoon and eaten at a later date.”
“Should we leave Chloe inside a cocoon to be eaten at a later date?” I asked. I slowed my steps, moving more cautiously now that there were obvious signs of the creature.
Beezle muttered something that sounded like, “Better her than me, and she eats all the pancakes, anyway.”
“All the more reason to get her back,” I said. “She’s the only person who can give you a run for your money at the dining room table. And Samiel would be heartbroken if anything happened to her.”
“Fine,” Beezle said. “But when we’re encased in goo, I’m definitely saying I told you so.”
Nathaniel stopped, holding up his hand. “Shh.”
He tilted his head slightly, listening. “We are nearly upon it,” he said softly. “I can hear it moving.”
“Chloe?” I asked, afraid to hope.
“She is still alive,” he said. “I cannot vouch for her condit
ion.”
“I can’t hear anything,” J.B. said.
“Nathaniel can,” I said, moving as carefully and quietly as I could. Even when trying to be silent I sounded like a lumbering bear next to the other two. Nathaniel’s footfalls were so light I had to check to make sure he wasn’t floating above the ground.
“When did he get bat ears?” J.B. asked.
“It’s a long story,” I said.
J.B. looked between me and Nathaniel. “Yeah, I bet.”
The tunnel appeared to continue on straight ahead of us for hundreds of feet.
“Where is it?” I asked.
Nathaniel shook his head. “It is nearby. With every step we take, its movements become louder.”
We walked a little farther. Nathaniel was very insistent that he could hear the creature, but there were no corridors or rooms off the main passage.
I stopped in the middle of the cave, looking all around. “Something isn’t right here.”
“You mean besides the fact that I’m hungry and there’s no food to be found?” Beezle said.
“Yes,” I said. “Nathaniel can hear the creature, but we can’t see it, and there’s nothing ahead of us but more tunnel. So there’s got to be some kind of entrance to another room or cavern that we can’t see. Beezle, did you lose your abilities when we entered the cave, too?”
“Yup,” Beezle said. “I’m just like a regular person now, no special gargoyle X-ray powers.”
“You’ll never be just like a regular person,” J.B. said.
“That doesn’t sound like a compliment,” Beezle said.
“I wouldn’t take it as such,” J.B. said.
I ignored their byplay and reached toward the wall. I had a suspicion and I wanted to see whether it was valid. Nathaniel grabbed my wrist.
“Do not touch that,” he said. “You do not know what kind of effect it may have on a human.”
I shook my head at him. “I’m not sure it’s there at all.”
Nathaniel narrowed his eyes at the substance coating the cave. “You think it’s an illusion?”
I nodded, and shook off his hand. I placed my palm on the wall of the cavern.
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