by Bella Klaus
Straightening, I peered deep within the recess of the space that the skull had occupied and found a glass jar half-full of ashes. I hovered my fingers over the object, feeling for dark or ominous magic, but only remnants of Kresnik’s power brushed against my senses.
I pulled it out and tried to twist off the top, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Put more effort into it,” Hades said.
“Alright.” I set it down again, dabbed my hands on the reaper cloak to remove all the moisture from my palms, and returned to the jar.
Clenching my teeth, I gripped its lid, and tried twisting off the cap with every ounce of strength. My biceps quivered from the effort, and the metal heated beneath my hands. After several moments of straining, I released the pressure, and my shoulders sagged. “It’s stuck.”
“You’ll have to smash it.”
“Then he’ll find broken pieces of glass and know I released you.”
“How else will you free my ashes?” he hissed.
“He’s probably secured the lid with a bit of magic.” I glanced around the room, looking for inspiration, but found only dry old books. There had to be a way to move the ashes from the jar without being detected. Hades’ idea to leave broken glass for anyone to find would either get me killed or shove the blame on Martika. Neither of those options were acceptable.
“Put the jar in your pocket, replace the skull, and get out of here,” he said. “We’ll smash it somewhere else.”
“Wait.” I reached into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out a pinch of salt.
“What’s that going to do?”
“Kresnik’s magic has to be evil, since most of it was stolen—”
“All of it,” Hades drawled. “When we secured him to the rock, we made sure he was powerless before permitting his release. Hurry up. Someone just passed outside this room and was talking about reporting back to Kresnik for something or other.”
I nodded, wondering how he could both play lookout and whisper in my ear. He’d probably stretched himself as thin as string and was crawling about like an earthworm. I shoved away the mental image and focussed on the task at hand. After spitting on my palm, I sprinkled the salt crystals on my hand and tried once more.
This time, it hissed open, and the ashes rose from the jar. I tipped it upside-down, speeding along their progress. Since Hades didn’t complain, I guessed he found the action helpful.
“Now, show me how to get out of here,” I asked.
“That Martika girl is approaching the door,” he said. “You have thirty seconds.”
Panic punched me in the gut, making me yelp. “Couldn’t you have warned me a minute ago?”
I glanced down into the jar, checking that it was empty, and then stuffed in some of the ashes from my pocket, and replaced the lid. After shoving it back onto the shelf, I replaced the skull and dashed to the sofa. My heart galloped a frantic beat, but I clamped my mouth shut and forced slow breaths in and out of my lungs.
Moments later, a door clicked open, and Martika stepped in and ran a hand through her red hair.
I turned around, widening my eyes into an expression I hoped she would interpret as mild surprise. “Where did he go?”
“They’re going to raid Logris.” She trudged across the room, dragging her feet.
My brows furrowed. “Are you alright?”
Martika raised her shoulders. “I joined this cause to make a difference. Now I’m just servicing a horny old man already trying to replace me. What are you still doing here?”
I rose from the sofa. “By the time I reached the top of the stairs there was nobody here and I couldn’t find a way out.”
She walked to one of the bookshelves, pulled down a red leather tome, and a section of the furniture clicked open.
“Thanks.” I stepped out into the hallway and caught a glimpse of a gilded portrait depicting a sun god. We were in Kenwood House, a few doors down from the room assigned to Valentine and me.
Martika stood in the doorway, staring at me as though she wanted to say something. I raised my brows, waiting for her to speak. From the way she complained earlier, she still seemed loyal to Kresnik’s ideals but upset that she wasn’t his girlfriend or getting a chance to fight under her own power. There was absolutely no way I would prompt her into saying something seditious, so she could report back to her master.
She shook her head. “See you later?”
“Yeah.” I turned on my heel and continued down the hallway, my heart pounding loud enough to echo across the walls.
When we reached the door to Valentine’s room, I paused. Martika was still standing in the doorway, staring at me as though waiting to see what I would do next. I raised a hand, waved, and stepped through Valentine’s door.
“What now?” I asked.
“Wait for it…” Moments later, Hades materialized in front of me, twice as thick as before. He rolled his shoulders and clapped his cloudy hands together. “That’s more like it.”
“You said there was another jar in the infirmary,” I said.
He smoothed down his cloudy chest, which he’d fashioned into a pair of prominent pectoral muscles. “The old healer is keeping one in her quarters.”
I leaned against the door. “Where are the others?”
“There’s one buried somewhere in the garden, but that’s easy to retrieve. Kresnik had his chef bake my ashes into clay and stuck it where he thought nobody would notice.”
My brows drew together. That seemed awfully far-fetched, but perhaps that was Kresnik’s safeguard in case anything happened to the jars. “What are we going to—”
“Worry not, Miss Griffin, I have a plan.”
“Is each jar of ashes aware of everything that’s happening around it?” I asked.
“Of course.” The edges of his cloudy form dissipated as though bristling at an insult. “Demons are eternal. By splitting my ashes, he also split my soul. I got to hear every plan he made in that room, and when you cracked the jar he gave King Valentine, it gave me the opportunity to travel around the Flame and its surroundings.”
“Right.” I nodded. “So, as soon as I release your ashes, you’ll show me where Valentine hid his heart?”
Hades wagged his finger. “When I put my ashes together and reform into a solid being, I will retrieve it for you myself.”
I nodded. “Because the heart is somewhere I can’t reach.”
He inclined his head. “Precisely.”
“Alright then, let’s go to the infirmary and see if we can’t distract Healer Calla.”
Once Hades had dissipated and spread his ashes wide enough to render himself barely visible, I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. Martika had either returned to Kresnik’s room or gone down to the Flame, and I continued toward the stairs, down the hallway, and descended the final set of stairs to reach the basement.
There were fewer people in the hallway, but I guess everyone had their missions. I had missed most of the brunch briefing when I had fainted, so I didn’t know what tasks Kresnik had set the other warriors, if any.
It was hard to believe that beneath these hallways stood hundreds of dead prisoners, standing to attention like tin soldiers waiting for a stroke of magic to bring them to life. Now that Kresnik had turned his attention to stealing the Supernatural Council’s stash of firestone, he would probably use everyone around the Flame to steal more prisoners for his basement.
My heart sank at the thought of all those dead and soon-to-be-dead bodies, and I exhaled a long breath.
“What’s wrong?” Hades murmured into my ears. “Having second thoughts?”
“It’s a vicious cycle,” I whispered. “Kresnik steals supernaturals’ powers and turns them into preternatural vampires. Then he steals humans to feed the vampires and transforms their corpses into zombies—”
“Zombies?” he scoffed. “Have you been watching human television?”
“What do you call them?”
“The magicless undead.”
I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, the more vampires he makes, the more humans they’re going to need to feed them.”
“And the more souls will remain trapped within this realm,” Hades added. “I wouldn’t care if he just killed people outright and let them move on to Heaven or Hell. His proclivity for upsetting the balances between the realms is what I find objectionable.”
“Glad to see you care,” I muttered.
“Demon King, Miss Griffin, or have you forgotten?”
My gaze turned to the white ceiling and I huffed a breath, admonishing myself for opening up to a creature that valued the integrity of realms more than the numbers of people who might get hurt by Kresnik’s actions. “Thanks for the reminder.”
I pushed the infirmary door open to find Healer Calla standing behind her counter. My steps faltered, and I pulled back my shoulders and tried to look casual as I made myself enter. How on earth was I going to sneak into her room and replace Hades’ ashes with wood ashes if she never left her station?
The healer’s face lit up with a bright smile, and she closed her book. “Good afternoon, Mera. Have you come to check on Aurora?”
I smiled at the reminder. So much had happened since I’d discovered she’d been whipped that I hadn’t been able to spare Aurora much thought. “Is she any better?”
Healer Calla swept her arm to the left. “See for yourself.”
“Thanks.” I guess she was still smiling. That had to be good news, but Healer Calla was almost as twisted as Kresnik.
The woman hadn’t hesitated to withdraw healing from injured people and inject them with vampire blood. Some of them hadn’t even been dying. Healer Calla only hid her malevolence behind kind words and the cutesy exterior of a kind grandma.
When I stepped into the darkened treatment room, Aurora still lay on her front where I’d left her. A white sheet covered her lower half, exposing her back. Even with the dim lighting, I could see that the whip marks had formed a thin crust but with a gentle glow beneath the scabs.
I rubbed my chin. The poultice had draw away some of the heat, but I’d put enough Dharma salt into the mix that it should have absorbed most of the black magic. Why had Healer Calla removed it early?
Heat radiated from her back the closer I got to where she slumbered on the treatment table.
“Ouch,” said Hades. “I wouldn’t treat the mothers of any of my children so harshly, no matter how much they deserved the punishment.”
Ignoring the comment about him chastising women, I continued toward Aurora. The bowl I had left on my last visit lay beneath a cloth on the table next to a jug of water.
I didn’t dare to wake Aurora and interrupt her respite from what still had to be excruciating pain, so I lifted the cloth to see if she needed me to make any more burn salve. The contents of the bowl were exactly how I’d left them and in the same consistency. Anger simmered through my insides. No one had thought to rub it on her back.
“Bloody hell,” I muttered under my breath and glared over my shoulder in the direction of the door. Healer Calla probably just came in, dumped the water for Aurora to serve herself, and didn’t care that she might crack open her scabs trying to get a drink.
Hades chuckled. “I would sure like to have that old healer as one of my minions. She shows no mercy toward the punished.”
“Shut up,” I muttered under my breath.
“Mera?” Aurora croaked.
My chest tightened with guilt at having woken her. “Sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean to disturb—”
A rusty laugh rattled in her chest. “There’s no rest under a punishment like this.”
I swallowed back a lump in my throat. “Do you need a drink? Let me put something on your back.”
“Water, please,” she rasped.
Ignoring the jug, which was probably lukewarm, I stepped out of the room and glowered at Healer Calla.
Her brows rose. “Mera?”
“Did you remove the poultices before they drew out all the heat?”
She frowned and clutched her hands to her chest. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“I made up a…” My gaze sharpened. The old woman was trying to gaslight me or at least pretend she hadn’t seen the poultices I’d placed on Aurora’s back. What was the point of arguing, when she’d continue this line of bullshit? “Never mind. Could I have some cold water, please?”
“Of course.” Healer Calla flashed me an overly bright smile.
The grin I offered her in return was equally as fake. “Extra cold, please.”
“No problem.” She disappeared to the back of the counter and opened up a refrigerator, letting out a puff of freezing air.
Hades chuckled. “I like this one. Mind if I reap her?”
My smile tightened. This was one occasion where I wouldn’t hold Hades to our bargain not to drag the fire users to Hell.
Moments later, Healer Calla emerged, holding a jug that had frosted over. The contents were frozen solid, so nothing even clinked. When she placed it on the counter, chips of ice fell off the glass and melted on the counter.
Widening her blue eyes, she said in an innocent voice, “Is that cold enough, dear?”
Hades' snickering laugh made my skin tighten with irritation, and the anger that had been simmering in my veins boiled. The woman wasn’t even pretending to be nice anymore. Perhaps Kresnik had already told her about his plans to extract my magic with her needle. Perhaps that meant that she didn’t expect me to survive the procedure.
Still holding the expression, I inclined my head and said through clenched teeth, “It’s perfect. Thank you.”
I had to wrap my hand in the sleeve of my cloak to provide a buffer from the extreme cold, but I took the jug into Aurora’s room and set it down on the table. I’d read enough articles in Psychology Today to recognize Healer Calla’s tactics as passive-aggressive, but this might work to our advantage.
Back in the cupboard by the door, I rifled through its contents, finding a bottle of food-grade aloe vera and a jar of papaver honey I hadn’t noticed the first time I’d searched. Istabelle had taught me herbal medicine as part of my apprenticeship, and some of that had included the production of teas and tinctures using items found in nature.
I lowered myself to my knees and searched the bottom shelf, which contained glass jars of dried herbs, and found some that Istabelle had said could reduce fevers, such as white willow bark, which humans used to create aspirin; lemon balm; Echinacea; and elderflower.
After placing them into the warm water Healer Calla had left out for Aurora, I pulled out a small mixing bowl for the aloe vera and honey to create a sweet paste.
“What are you doing?” Aurora said, sounding pained.
“Making a cordial,” I replied. “The aloe vera will cool you from the inside out, and the honey will act as a painkiller.” I dashed into the cupboard, found a tub of activated charcoal, and poured half its contents into the mixture. “This will soak up any impurities in your system.”
I poured half the herbal tea into Healer Calla’s ice water and stirred, adding the honey and aloe mix for sweetness. Afterward, I shifted Aurora a bit and balanced the jug and straw atop a pile of books, so Aurora could drink while I worked on her back.
As soon as she swallowed a mouthful, a long sigh escaped her nostrils. “That’s wonderful.”
I uncovered the bowl of salve I’d made on my last visit and rubbed the cooling gel on her back, making her gasp with relief. “One more thing.”
“What are you doing now?” Hades hissed.
I crossed the room, rifled through the cupboard, and pulled out the gauze and a sack of Dharma salt. “Now that the wound has crusted over, I can be more aggressive in drawing out the heat.”
After covering the whip marks in gauze and more of the aloe vera salve, I poured half the contents of the sack onto Aurora’s back and took a few steps toward the door.
A sizzle filled the air and steam rose off the salt, glowing ye
llow in the light of the candles. Aurora panted and moaned, but I wasn’t sure if it was out of pain or relief.
“You’ve overdone it,” Hades said.
“I hope not,” I murmured under my breath. “Her body has already created a natural crust over the molten flesh. That drink is cooling her insides and chasing the heat to her back, and the salt is just drawing it out. Think of it as water evaporating when you throw damp potatoes into boiling oil.”
“I have no idea of what you’re talking about,” he muttered.
Steam filled the room, and dampened my skin, reminding me of the steam room in the basement of Valentine’s Notting Hill villa. Aurora’s breathing deepened, and my stomach plummeted. What if I was suffocating her?
As soon as I opened the door to let out the vapor, Healer Calla jogged inside, her cheeks flushed. “Did you use magic?”
I raised my palms. “I don’t have an ounce of power. Only the contents of your shelves.”
She stared into the steam, her lips frozen in a smile. “Congratulations. Sister Aurora will be up and ready to serve Our Lord within the next few hours. Perhaps this time, she might complete her mission with success.”
A band of alarm wrapped around my chest. Aurora told me that the next time she received the flame whip, the fire would consume her body. The smoke cleared, leaving Aurora lying on her front, having nearly finished the jug of sweet herbal tea.
Healer Calla flipped her pigtails over her shoulders and bustled out of the room.
My throat thickened, and I swallowed over and over, wondering what the hell I’d done. By healing her wounds, had I condemned Aurora to another potential punishment that would lead to her death?
Chapter Twenty
I leaned against the doorframe, glowering after the disappearing Healer Calla, wishing I could tackle her to the ground. Every fiber of my being knew the wretched woman was hurrying to find Kresnik, so he could put Aurora to work.
“Go now,” Hades roared into my ear.
My heart flip-flopped, and I hurried across the infirmary reception. Hades guided me to the door at the far right of the room, which he said contained the old woman’s private quarters. I pushed down on the handle, hoping she hadn’t warded it, and exhaled a sigh of relief when it yielded under my fingers.