Gabriel was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if he was being punished for defying Amarantha earlier, or if she just didn’t want him anywhere near me before I went into the Maze.
“Ambassador Black, you will be pleased to hear that Lord Focalor has agreed to participate in the challenge of the Maze. His representative Antares will be entering the Maze with you.”
“Big surprise,” I muttered.
“The terms are as follows,” Amarantha continued. “Ambassador Black will enter from the east side of the Maze. Antares ap Azazel will enter from the west side at precisely the same time. The thrall Gabriel ap Ramuell is held at the center of the maze. Whoever reaches the thrall first will take him as their prize. Once you have successfully returned with your prize, I will commence negotiations with the winning court. Are these terms acceptable to you both?”
Focalor nodded. “I look forward to negotiating a treaty with you, my lady.”
So Focalor seemed to have gotten his confidence back. Apparently a little power of Lucifer manifesting inside me wasn’t enough to worry him.
“Are the terms acceptable to you, Ambassador Black?” Amarantha said.
“I have one term of my own,” I said.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw J.B. close his eyes in frustration. Well, I wasn’t going to get anything without asking for it, and even if I managed to get out of the Maze alive and with Gabriel, there was still the Focalor problem to deal with. The least I could do was to make this contest about more than Gabriel. If I could stop the demon uprising, then it was worth any amount of pain I might endure.
I turned to Focalor, who quirked his eyebrows at me, as if to say, “I’m listening.”
“If I find Gabriel before Antares and make it back here first, you drop your grievance against Lucifer.”
Focalor narrowed his eyes. “My grievance with Lucifer is long-standing and far-reaching. Why should I sacrifice my legitimate claim against him?”
“If a representative of your court is defeated by a representative of his—or vice versa—is that not enough to satisfy the laws of the kingdom without further bloodshed?”
Focalor showed his teeth to me. “You are implying that further bloodshed is something I wish to avoid.”
“Do you agree or not?” I said impatiently. “You seem to think I’m going to lose anyway so why not consent? If Antares comes back first, you get to be as mad at Lucifer as you want to be.”
He looked thoughtful. “But what if you come back first, as unlikely a possibility as that may be?”
“Then you go back to your court, apologize to Lucifer and hope like hell he doesn’t smite you off the face of the earth.”
“That is not a very appealing option,” Focalor said.
“Just stop dithering and be a man about it,” I said, impatient to get into the Maze. I wanted to get this over with. “Yes or no?”
Focalor took a moment longer, seeming to weigh all the options. I could see him calculating the long odds that I would actually survive the Maze.
“Very well,” he said.
“You have witnessed it, Queen Amarantha,” I said formally. “If I defeat his representative in the Maze, then Focalor will drop his grievance against Lucifer and return to the fold.”
Like Amarantha, Focalor would agree to anything because he didn’t think I actually had a chance. Then again, Beezle didn’t think I had a chance either. He was usually my biggest cheerleader, so maybe they were right and I was wrong.
Amarantha nodded. “And you agree to all terms as well?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Then let us proceed,” she said, and signaled to Violet. “You may follow Lady Violet to the entrance, Ambassador. Antares ap Azazel, you may follow Narke.”
One of the forest warriors stepped forward to take Antares out a side entrance. Violet indicated that I should follow her out of the main doors.
I looked at Beezle and J.B., but they both looked away from me. All right, that hurt a lot. The least they could do was say good-bye if they thought I was going to die.
I turned my back on the throne, and followed Violet to my doom.
Violet led me through the courtyard and out into the forest without a word. She found a path among the thick and low-hanging branches that I couldn’t have seen with a microscope. She didn’t try to make conversation and I was too busy trying not to hyperventilate to act polite.
After about twenty minutes of hard walking, we suddenly emerged into a clearing, and in front of us was the Maze.
A massive wall of stone rose in front of us, blocking out the weak early-winter sun. I realized I’d forgotten a coat and that it was maybe forty degrees outside.
The wall was covered in strange grayish green vines with enormous leaves. As I looked, the vines shifted like snakes across the surface of the wall. J.B. was right. The Maze was a living thing, and a faint pulse of energy came off it as we stood there: the questing tentacle of a blind animal.
The pulse moved through me from the tips of my sneakers to the crown of my head, and I shivered uncomfortably. I felt exposed, like my chest had been peeled back to show my beating heart.
A moment later an opening appeared in the wall of the Maze. The interior was dark and shifting, and I could see nothing beyond the doorway.
I stepped forward. “Okay, I guess this is my stop.”
Violet didn’t answer. I looked around and saw that she had already disappeared back into the forest.
J.B. could do a lot better than her. Seriously.
“And I’m going to tell him so when I get back,” I said.
Then I took a deep breath, thought of Gabriel, and stepped into the Maze.
The door closed behind me, leaving me stranded in pitch-darkness. Even the top of the Maze was covered.
I summoned a small blue ball of nightfire to light my way with my left hand, and pulled the sword from its scabbard with my right. The snake beneath my palm nudged my skin, like the comfortable press of a dog’s nose. It felt almost as if I had a friend with me.
I held the nightfire out ahead of me and checked both directions. There was no obvious difference between the two, so I decided to use my medieval maze trick again and choose right whenever possible.
I started to move forward with the ball of light ahead of me. My breath came in harsh pants and it sounded unnaturally loud in this enclosed space. My light cast a pitiful circle. The dark seemed to press all around me, brushing over my shoulders, swiping fingertips over my neck.
“Don’t be afraid,” I told myself, and my voice echoed down the hall, wavery and very, very frightened.
I could have faced anything if only there had been a little more light. The total darkness was getting to me and I’d only been in the Maze a few moments. How long was this thing? How far would I have to go? It couldn’t be short or else there would be no challenge. The sword in my hand gave me a friendly little nudge again, and I deliberately tried to calm my breathing. There was no point in freaking out when I hadn’t even faced anything yet.
I tried not to think about Antares and how far he might have gotten already. Did demons even have nightmares? What could he possibly be afraid of that would impede his journey to the center of the Maze?
The tunnel ended in a T-junction and I turned right. I didn’t have a better plan. I wished Beezle was there to tell me I was acting like a dummy. I tried not to think about how much it hurt that he hadn’t even said good-bye to me. It had always been me and Beezle. I’d had Beezle with me longer than I’d had my mother.
After walking for several minutes I started to feel like the Maze was trying to lull me into a false sense of security. I hadn’t had to deal with anything worse than the pressing darkness, and as long as I didn’t think about it too hard I was able to handle it. The companionable feeling of the sword helped.
Then the spider came looming out of the darkness.
There was no warning as there had been in the forest, no hiss and click of its pincers, no heavy thud on th
e ground. There was only a spark of red eyes and the silent scream of its open mouth as it descended on me. I saw a flash of its hairy legs a second before it landed on me and I fell to the floor, rolling away from its grasp. The nightfire in my hand winked out.
I came to my knees and slashed blindly into the darkness with the sword. The blade connected with something solid and I felt it slice cleanly through chitin and flesh. The spider screamed and the blast of its breath stank of blood and rotten meat.
I jumped to my feet and ran down the corridor away from the spider. I could hear it behind me now, stumbling and crashing against the narrow walls—thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. Only seven thumps. I’d slashed off one of its legs.
If I lit another ball of nightfire, the spider would easily find me. I was sure its eyesight was better in the darkness than mine but I wasn’t about to give it an advantage by lighting myself up like a neon sign. I gripped the sword in one hand and waved my other hand in front of me so that I wouldn’t run into a wall.
My free hand scraped stone and vine. The spider was still several feet behind me, struggling in the tight confines of the Maze. I sincerely hoped it would get stuck.
I turned right, and as I did the sounds behind me went silent. Had the spider given up, or had the Maze taken it back? Should I dare the light?
After a moment of dithering I decided it was better to risk the light and know for sure what was going on. I conjured nightfire and cautiously peeked around the corner.
That was when the spider struck me from behind.
I had a moment to think, Oh, that’s not fair, and then the spider closed its pincers around my right leg. I screamed as its jaws pierced my flesh and it shook me around, slamming me against the sides of the corridor.
The sword warmed under my palm until it felt almost too hot to hold. I was abruptly aware that the corridor was lit up like the sun and the light was coming from the sword. The spider screeched and dropped me to the ground, scuttling backward.
I rolled over to see it receding down the hallway as quickly as its enormous body would allow. I wasn’t about to let it get away and sneak up on me again. I staggered to my feet, blood pouring from the wound on my right leg, and felt that leg buckle and give way underneath me.
The heat of the sword was searing my skin. I was parthuman; my body wasn’t made to wield the sun. But I held on to the grip as tight as I could and raised the sword high. The spider flinched away from the light, its seven legs flailing in agony.
I summoned my power and my will and pushed it through my heartstone. This was the magic that had destroyed Ramuell, and I let it flow through me.
The spell hit the spider full on in its ugly face, and I had the immense satisfaction of seeing it burn molecule by molecule until it was gone.
I leaned against the wall, panting and covered in sweat. Blood from my leg dripped onto the floor, making my sneakers slide around. I sank to the ground because it was easier than scrabbling for purchase in my own gore.
The sword was still lit up like Vegas at night. I looked at it. “You could have done this earlier, you know, when I was freaking out about the dark.”
A little pulse answered me, as if to say, “I didn’t know you wanted me to.”
I examined the wounds underneath the ragged remains of my right pant leg. The cuts were almost perfectly round but tattered at the edges, where the spider’s serrated pincers had cut the skin. Blood flowed sluggishly, which was good because it meant I wouldn’t bleed out anytime soon. But I wasn’t exactly carrying a first aid kit with me.
The sword winked at me, and somehow I knew what it was telling me. I pressed the blade to the wound on one side of my leg, and then I screamed, because it hurt like hell. But when I pulled the sword away the wound was cauterized. The other side was harder to do. It’s hard not to flinch when you know what’s coming.
“When Gabriel heals me, it’s a lot nicer than this,” I muttered. “There’s usually kissing involved.”
The sword would have shrugged its shoulders if it had any.
“Now I’m anthropomorphizing a weapon,” I said. “If I keep this up, I’ll be talking to my buttons before it’s all over.”
I pushed wearily to my feet and tested my leg. It hurt like hell, and the muscles were still torn even though the wound was closed. But I was sure the Maze had more surprises for me, and that I wasn’t even close to the end. I limped forward.
At least this time the sword provided light for me, so I was able to see the demons when they attacked.
They came crawling down the walls and the ceiling, a horde of seeking tentacles and flickering tongues and razortipped claws. Some of them were small, some large; some squished and some walked. They were covered in boils and lash marks and burn scars. Some of them hissed, some of them drooled, some of them gnashed blackened teeth. All of them had their slitted yellow eyes focused on me.
There were so many of them I didn’t have time to think about what I needed to do. I just started blasting away with my magic with one hand and hacking away with my sword with the other. Demon blood splattered my hands and demon saliva burned my arms. Heads rolled beneath my feet and clawed hands grasped at my ankles. I kicked out, slashed down, parried up, poured my magic out in a steady stream like a machine gun without the safety on. My sword hand worked without my knowledge or skill, led by the will of Lucifer long ago embedded in its crafting.
I don’t know how long I fought the demons, or how many I killed. I only know that after what seemed like hundreds of corpses were piled in the corridor behind me the attack abruptly petered out and I was alone again.
I limped away from the stench of dead demons, my right leg dragging behind me. I tried to call my wings but they wouldn’t come for me. So the Maze would let me have my magic, but only to a degree. I guessed my wings would make things too easy. I hoped the Maze gave Antares a similar disadvantage.
I managed to make it down a few corridors unmolested. Once I was sure I was well away from the site of the demon battle, I stopped and took stock of my injuries.
My long-sleeved tee had been burned in several places on my arms from demon saliva. Long shiny welts on my arms and hands peeked from underneath the torn cotton. One demon had managed to get a good hold on my left leg and tear the denim at the knee. It had also left a long shallow cut that had mostly clotted up.
The ragged pieces of my clothing were now more annoying than protective, so I ripped the sleeves out of the shirt at the armholes and used the sword to turn the jeans into cutoffs. I looked sadly at my favorite sneakers, which were so covered in demon gore that I would probably have to throw them away. If, that was, I actually survived.
My sword arm felt sore and the sword itself weighed a ton now that the adrenaline of battle was spent. I was afraid to put it in the scabbard since the Maze seemed to like surprising me, but it was hard to carry at the ready. I limped along with the sword hanging loosely at my side, the tip just barely clearing the floor.
I was starting to feel tired and a little delirious. I hadn’t had anything to eat except a granola bar and a few almonds in more than twenty-four hours, and I’d spent a lot of that time under extreme stress. I just wanted to close my eyes for a while and rest. If I could sleep a little, I would feel better.
But the Maze sensed weakness, and that was when Antares rounded the corner.
“Still alive, little sister?” Antares hissed.
He looked completely unharmed by the antics of the Maze. Unfair, I thought for the second time since I’d entered Amarantha’s sadistic toy. Why should he be raring and ready to go when I was ready to fall flat on my face?
It would never do to show weakness to Antares even if I was at a low point. “Are you lost, little brother?” I said, and held the sword up and ready to attack. “I was sure you would have run home crying to Focalor by now.”
Antares just smiled at me, and moved closer. I called for my magic, but there was nothing there. This wasn’t the feeling that I
had when I had overworked myself and used too much power at once. Despite the continuous stream of demons I hadn’t felt my magic growing weak.
This was different. It was like the magic just wasn’t inside me, like it had never been inside me. But that was impossible. Even without the new powers awakened by Lucifer’s sword, I still had my Agent magic.
Then I understood. The Maze had taken my power from me. J.B. had said that the Maze would find my worst nightmares, and being powerless in the face of Antares definitely qualified.
“Looking for something, sister?” Antares taunted, and it was then that I realized something else. This wasn’t the real Antares. This was a manifestation of the Maze drawn from my own mind.
“Yeah, your head on a plate,” I snapped back. Even when I was exhausted and injured, my mouth ran away from me.
“Come and get it, then,” Antares crooned, and crooked one clawed finger at me.
I rushed at him with my sword up and held in both hands. I don’t know what I was planning to do but Antares kicked my legs out from beneath me before I even got close. I landed hard on the back of my head and saw stars spinning above me.
Antares yanked Lucifer’s sword from my hand and tossed it away. It still lit the corridor, but its brightness dimmed a bit once it was away from me. I tried to stand and get away but Antares kicked me in the stomach.
It was like the first time I had met him, before I knew he was a demon, before I knew he was my brother or that I was Azazel’s daughter. He had beaten me within an inch of my life and the only thing that had saved me had been Gabriel’s magic.
But Gabriel wasn’t here now, and I was just as powerless as I had been the first time. I held my hands up, trying to protect myself from Antares’s vicious kicks, but I was so tired and hurt that all I could do was roll feebly away. He kicked me in the ribs again, and I coughed, tasting blood in my mouth.
He’s going to kill me, I thought.
I rolled to my stomach, tried to inch away in a crawl. Antares laughed behind me.
“What do you think of your beloved heir now, Father?” he asked.
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