Demon Forged

by Meljean Brook

  “No,” Khavi said softly, and when her Gift dragged across Irena’s psyche, it revealed a heavy sorrow behind Khavi’s quiet expression. “We won’t.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Flying into Chaos, Irena hit a solid wall of screams. She thought she’d prepared for them, but they ripped at her ears, her heart. Tortured, terrified, pleading—the noise filled her, combined with the hot fetid air, squeezed into her lungs as if trying to force her own scream.

  She slowed, waiting for the others. Michael and Khavi had already gone through; now they flew with incredible speed around the mountainside, where they would clear a path to the caves. Below, wyrmwolves writhed and squirmed. The stench of their blood and exposed flesh rose on heated currents. To her left, the bleak landscape stretched, ribboned by the rivers of molten rock. Far above, she saw the whip of a tail and a flash of scales against the frozen black ceiling. Her heart clamored, the racing of her pulse in her ears adding to the crushing weight of sound.

  Not just her heart. The others’ raced, too, as they gathered beside her. She glanced back as, finally, Alejandro came through, bringing up the rear. She met his eyes, and the pressure of the noise receded. As soon as he was in position, she led them forward.

  As they rounded the side of the mountain, Jake’s group broke off, angling upward. Irena skimmed close to the rocks, aware of the bright target her white wings made against the dark granite. They came in above the cave—Michael and Khavi had already completed their task. Three nephilim lay dead beside the entrance, their black feathers the same color as the rock beneath them.

  Irena landed and vanished her wings. Michael stood, bloodied sword in hand, looking out over the swarm of nephilim and dragons. A flash of white briefly lighted his face. Lightning forked across the sky. A nephil fell; a dragon dived after it.

  Michael glanced at Alice. “You will tell him it was well done.”

  “You will,” Alice countered. Her face pale, she swiftly unwound steel-strong spider silk from a coil the size of Irena’s fist. The strands were gossamer thin and difficult to see unless Irena looked for them. “I will tie one end near the mouth of the cave. If you come for us, this will lead you to our location—but mind your step. I intend to set traps, should any nephilim try to follow us inside. I will mark them with a drop of blood.”

  The first explosion tore through the bodies. A dragon shrieked, drawing up as a ball of fire roared toward it. With a flick of its wings, the dragon rolled into a sinuous back somersault, changing direction. A second, then a third explosion came quickly after.

  A smile touched Michael’s hard mouth, and he lifted into the air. “Be safe.”

  Irena turned as Alejandro slipped into the cave, his blades gleaming in the dark. She followed.

  The mouth of the cave narrowed into a single tunnel that sloped sharply down into the mountain. Ames-Beaumont and Selah had hidden in these caves before, and had given them a description as far as they could recall: After five hundred yards, this tunnel opened up into a large chamber, which split into three directions. The tunnel on the right, they’d warned, was eventually a dead end, but with enough chambers to hide the nephilim. They’d taken the left tunnel, which in turn broke off into other directions, tiny crawlspaces, abrupt chasms.

  Beside her, Alejandro inhaled, and looked to her with a question in his eyes. “Human?”

  His nose was better than hers. Irena could barely detect the scent of human blood and bodies beneath the reek of rot and the wyrmwolves’ stale musk. But it wouldn’t be human—it was the nephilim. The scent would give them a clearer trail to follow. Irena motioned for Alejandro to take the lead.

  The noise from outside slowly faded, the screams, thunder, and explosions faint in the background. The corridor narrowed until Alejandro was forced to walk at an angle to make his shoulders fit.

  Remembering Khavi’s prediction, Irena frowned. “How would a dragon fit through this space and find the portal?”

  “Perhaps there is another entrance,” Alejandro said. “Or a very small dragon.”

  Alice sighed. “Never would I have imagined myself saying this, but I miss the friendship you shared, when you only spoke to each other in French. How absurd I feel, following a conversation in which one half is Russian and the other Spanish.”

  Alejandro spared a brief glance back. “And now more than half. You choose Russian?”

  “I feel absurd, not foolish. I know better than to poke a bear with a fox’s blade.”

  Irena grinned. The tunnel widened, and she felt Alejandro’s relief as he once again had more room to maneuver. Ahead, the first chamber arched overhead like a cathedral, and stood empty. The scent led them to the far tunnel.

  Of course, it had to be the one tunnel they knew nothing about, Irena thought.

  With his swords, Alejandro gestured to the right and left. “Shall we close them?”

  Yes. Even if any nephilim hid in chambers or chasms, Irena could seal off the mouths of the corridors and prevent the nephilim from coming around behind them. She called in several tons of steel from her cache and set it at the entrance of the right tunnel. When she pushed her Gift through it, the steel flowed upward, outward, radiating into a thick door. She slammed the edges into the stone, setting the door into place. She repeated it at the left tunnel while Alice set an elaborate trap with her webs at the end of the corridor that had brought them to the chamber.

  They made enough noise, Irena thought, to bring an army of nephilim down on them . . . but none came to investigate the sounds or the use of her Gift. Dense stone could muffle psychic senses—but if the nephilim hadn’t heard her ramming steel into stone, they’d have to be much deeper into the mountain.

  Or in human form.

  When the nephilim used their demon forms, their psychic scent didn’t match the humans’—and the body rejected their presence, as it might fight off a sickness. The longer the sickness, the longer the nephilim needed to heal once they reverted to human form.

  Perhaps the nephilim had not been in and out of these caves using the portal. It might simply be the safest location to recuperate.

  Alejandro must have been thinking the same. “I had expected them to seek us out.”

  Irena nodded. “They had guards at the mouth of the cave; I cannot imagine they would not have more inside, particularly if their brethren are vulnerable.” It was what Irena would do, if she had to watch over weakened or injured comrades. “If they are in an easily defensible position, they’ll wait for us to come to them rather than leave their brethren alone.”

  And unable to hide their approach, she, Olek, and Alice would walk into an ambush. Alejandro stared down the darkened corridor, his thumbs rubbing against his sword handles. It was, Irena knew, a gesture that meant the same as a stroke of his finger down his beard: He considered alternatives. He weighed priorities.

  Irena slipped into the corridor, listened. Nothing. The darkness deepened at the end of the tunnel; soon, the dark would be absolute, and they’d have to use a light source to see—making them a brighter target than their movements would.

  She already felt completely blind. The narrowness of the first tunnel had convinced her that the portal could not be this way—no dragon could squeeze through. Yet her certainty came from Khavi foreseeing the dragon passing through the portal; a future which, itself, was uncertain.

  It was an endless knot that she couldn’t untangle. But she did not know if it was time to draw her sword and cut through it.

  Her eyes searched the darkness. Fear gripped her throat in its ragged claws. As frightened as she was of the nephilim waiting, the consequences of taking the wrong path terrified her far more.

  Khavi cannot see what she does not know.

  Maybe Khavi didn’t know that the tunnel was tighter than a dragon’s ass.

  Irena turned to Alejandro. “We must decide—”

  “We go back,” he said.

  “Back,” Alice agreed.

  Irena laughed, nodding. “Yes. But let
us do what we can here first.” She glanced at Alice. “Did Jake give to you any of those missile launchers?”

  Alice’s relieved expression flattened into a disbelieving look. “That question is just slightly more stupid than asking if he gave me only one.” Smiling, she joined Irena at the mouth of the tunnel. “Do you want to collapse it?”

  “Or worse. I do not know how long a door would hold against them if there are many.”

  “I have worse,” Alice said. “Namely, a tactical nuclear device.”

  Irena stared at her.

  The Guardian shrugged her thin shoulders. “Jake considered using it out there, but he didn’t know if exploding one against the ceiling would weaken the barrier.”

  Irena wasn’t certain if shock or amusement had prevented Alejandro from replying. But now he recovered, and said, “What is the yield?”

  “It is small—only ten tons. About two city blocks.”

  “On a timer?”

  “Yes.”

  Irena found her voice. “And so this is your plan—we set it and run? But what if they take hold of it first and toss it back at us?”

  “We carry it farther down this tunnel,” Alejandro said, gesturing toward the darkness beyond Irena. “We can see that it narrows. When it widens again, you create a steel box for it, wide enough that they can’t move the container beyond the narrow gap, and with the metal embedded into the stone so they cannot vanish the box into their cache without first hacking it free. Then we set it and run.”

  Alice nodded her agreement. “If we take it to that depth, we’ll also be safer once we are outside.”

  How could this sound reasonable? Either it was reasonable or they were desperate. Perhaps it was both.

  “Get it ready, then.” Irena crouched in the mouth of the tunnel and looked into the shadows. “And I will watch your back.”

  She glanced around once; Alice worked quickly over a device she’d taken out of a green barrel. They decided upon a five-second timer, with Alice in the lead to guide them around her traps as they ran outside. Alejandro only agreed to let Irena bring up the rear after she pointed out that, if something kept them in the tunnel longer than five seconds, she could create a thick steel shield to protect them.

  She did not know if it would—she knew nothing of nuclear devices. She only knew that if they ran late, she would take the brunt of the explosion.

  Alice finished, drew a deep breath, and vanished the device into her cache. “We are ready.”

  The shadows in the corridor deepened. Irena couldn’t remember when she had last seen such darkness. She listened for heartbeats, heard only theirs. The human scent grew stronger. The tunnel narrowed. Her heart thumped when she heard a scrape behind her. Only Alice’s boot, and yet knowing didn’t ease her fear.

  The tunnel wall angled wider. Alejandro watched the almost-complete darkness as Irena quickly formed the box. Alice called in her device, slipped it inside. They looked at each other. Alice reached forward, turned a key, touched a button, Irena sealed the box—and they ran.

  The chamber passed in a blur. Alice raced ahead, springing traps with her blade, darting around others. Five seconds was an eternity. The screams from outside became louder and louder. White light flashed down the tunnel. Thunder crashed as Alice breached the entrance. Alejandro turned, grabbed Irena’s hand, leapt for Alice. They smashed to the ground.

  Irena formed a thick, domed shield, surrounding them in six inches of steel. They waited. One second, two, three—

  The steel shuddered beneath them, as if the mountain had been rocked by a small earthquake. A tiny tremor followed. Then all was still.

  Irena lifted her head. Her fingers shook. She untangled Alice’s skirts from her legs. “I expected worse.”

  “As did I.” Alejandro rose onto his knees, ducking his head beneath the low dome.

  “We shall shower Jake with our disappointment.” Alice took a deep breath. “We’re blind.”

  Yes. Irena called in her knives, crouching. Alejandro brought in the heavy swords she’d made him. She waited for Alice’s long-bladed naginata to appear in the Guardian’s hands before she said, “On three, I’ll unfold the dome, and give us a wall. The mountain should be at our backs. As soon as we are on our feet, I’ll vanish the steel. On three.”

  She counted, then rolled her Gift through the metal. The dome opened like an oyster shell, flattening and rising to form a wide shield in front of them.

  Something hit the other side. Before Irena could react, the wall slammed into her. She smashed into granite. Bones snapped—not hers. Beside her, Alice’s eyes were closed, her body limp. Pinned by the steel wall facing Alice, Irena couldn’t see Olek. She tried to push forward. Her feet slipped. On blood?

  She struck with her Gift. Steel spikes stabbed outward; Irena heard a feminine gasp of pain. The pressure of the wall eased. Irena folded the thick steel sheet, snapping it closed like an Iron Maiden. She missed.

  Alice crumpled to the ground. Black dust and smoke filled the air around them, above them, obscuring the frozen ceiling. Only flashes of lightning and the never-ending screams penetrated the dense cloud. Irena vanished the steel wall.

  Black dust streaking her beautiful face like tears, a sword in her hand, Anaria lunged out of the darkness toward Irena.

  Olek got there first. The blade meant for Irena’s heart stabbed through his stomach.

  Irena caught the tip as it pierced his back. Her Gift raged through the sword, peeling thin wires from the blade. They climbed Anaria’s sword arm. Irena wound them tight, biting into skin and muscle.

  Anaria froze.

  Her chest heaving, Irena slipped her right arm around Olek’s waist. She couldn’t see Anaria’s face. She couldn’t release the sword. “Let him go.”

  A sob caught in Anaria’s voice. “You killed my children.”

  I would kill them all. Irena didn’t dare say it. Not when Anaria still held the sword. Not when her strength could tear dull steel up through Olek’s heart, not when Anaria’s speed far exceeded Irena’s. Even if she softened the steel, the grigori could punch through Olek’s heart.

  She did not know how to respond, what would get them out of this.

  Olek did. And despite the sword through his gut, when he spoke his words were the smoothest silk. “You will not kill her, Anaria.”

  “No?” The reply devolved into a laugh, high and pained.

  “No. And if you vow you will not, I will tell you the name of the demon who murdered Zakril.”

  The laugh stopped. The sword quivered against Irena’s bloodied hand. “Who?”

  Olek waited.

  “If you speak true, I will not kill her,” Anaria promised.

  Irena’s body trembled. Olek bargained with Anaria as he would with a demon. “Him,” she said. “You won’t kill him.”

  “Her,” Olek said firmly, and before Irena could reply—“Rael murdered your husband. Rael stabbed a sword through Zakril’s chest, pinning him to a stone wall. He pounded iron spikes through Zakril’s wings, and used his desecrated body to leave a message for your children, so they would know where to find you.”

  “No.” The sword jerked. Olek tensed, but didn’t make a sound; Irena clenched her teeth against the terrified scream rising in her throat. “I can see lies, and Rael has never lied to me. He has said he is a friend to me.”

  “If you also see the truth, you know that I do not lie.”

  Anaria’s breath shuddered once, twice. Her reply held less conviction, yet more determination—as if she were trying to convince herself. “He has never lied to me.”

  “Then perhaps you have never asked him the right questions.” Olek’s voice hardened. “Starting, perhaps, with his definition of friendship.”

  Movement flashed at the corner of her eye. A winged shadow passed through the dark cloud. Irena couldn’t determine size or shape.

  Olek must have seen it, too. His heart beat faster. His weight shifted, almost imperceptibly—preparing to move.
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  When she spoke, Anaria’s harmonious voice had lost all emotion. “Do you have any regrets, Guardian?”

  Irena stiffened, prepared to liquefy the sword. She searched her cache. An anvil. A rock. It did not matter—this could not happen.

  “Just one,” Olek said. “And enjoying every moment of what Michael does to you now isn’t it.”

  A dark form streaked out of the cloud, slammed into Anaria’s side. Her sword ripped from Olek’s stomach.

  Michael. He flew headlong into the mountainside, smashing Anaria face-first into the granite. His face rigid with fury, he wrapped his arm around her neck from behind, caught her in an unbreakable hold.

  Irena didn’t understand a word Michael shouted at his sister, but his rage needed no translation. Anaria kicked at the granite; the ground beneath Irena’s feet shivered.

  She turned back to Olek and formed her wings. “If they begin to fight, we don’t want to be caught in the path of it.”

  “Yes.”

  With swords in his hands, he stood over her as she bent to Alice. She lifted the Guardian against her chest. Alice’s skirts and side were slick, wet. Irena’s heart clenched as she searched for the source of the blood. Her hand came away clean.

  Not blood. Not blood. Water.

  She sniffed her hand and looked up at Olek. “There’s water. Sea water.”

  “From where?”

  Irena stood with Alice in her arms, her gaze scanning the ground. Drops over there, splattered as if from high above, traveling away from the cave entrance. Farther away, another drop, and another. But here, beneath Alice, there hadn’t just been drops but a puddle. As if someone flying had spilled the water, and—still wet—had left more drops in his wake.

  She glanced up into the sky just as Michael shouted her name. A huge shadow arrowed toward them from high above, taking shape at terrifying speed. A shimmering blue-green dragon, its black wings tucked, its talons outstretched, like a hawk preparing to snatch a rabbit from a field.