“You said yourself they’re blackened,” Kate protested.
He waved her concerns away. “What we think about them and what we should do about it are two very different things. I’ll help with the market for my own reasons, but I won’t take on the Council. Nobody can take on the Council. Look who has the power. I wouldn’t dare go up against Fionnuala alone, never mind with the rest of the Council behind her. And the Guardians? Their numbers might be low, but when the vampires attack, they’ll be the ones protecting us. Do you really think the people will let us kill their protection?”
That put a damper on the excitement. The crowd seemed to dissipate before my eyes.
“This place won’t be safe anymore,” I warned Folsom. “I’ve been here too many times. Val will be seen leaving here. They’ll stop you from coming back and do something to keep you from bringing food.”
“We can take care of that,” Lorcan announced.
“No,” I said. “Stay here and be safe.”
“They expect our assistance,” he said.
“Right, and I’ll take the punishment, but I didn’t get you out of the UK so you could come here and serve another master. Stay hidden.”
Lucia shook her head vehemently, then took my hand. I caught a brief glimpse of Val lying wounded in a dark place, but the image was blurry and uncertain.
“I’ll stop it,” I whispered, but she refused to let go of my hands until I agreed to think about it.
At home, Emmett begged me not to leave. “You won’t come back from there,” he whispered. “Nobody comes back from the dark, Ava.”
“You did.” I tried to sound confident. “I come from the light and the dark. I can handle either of them, and probably fight with both. I’ll be with a lot of people. Nobody is going to get hurt this time.”
“What about the others? The ones like me?”
“They’ll… I’ll figure something out to keep them safe. I’m going to do the best I can.”
“Maeve came back today,” he said. “She says Eddie’s angry with you, that he’s given up on you. He’s trying to find another.”
“Another what?”
“Another you.”
My heart chilled, but I put on a shaky smile. “Hey, after this is over, how about you and me go sightseeing? I’ll show you everything you’ve missed.”
That seemed to cheer him up, but I couldn’t shake what he had told me. What did it even mean? I needed to get Eddie back on my side if I was going up against the Council, if only to stop him from influencing someone who might be like me.
Peter and Carl were annoyed about being left out of the latest fight, and both were speechless when I explained what exactly had happened.
“Why am I even surprised?” Peter asked. “Emmett could have been one of them, and I would have never known.” He choked up a little, turning away from us.
I reached out for his hand, and he let me take it. He let me share his pain, and I knew how to comfort him. It was a breakthrough for both of us. Carl watched with sad eyes as Peter leaned into me. I felt every ounce of Peter’s pain because it was righteous. It was the way we should have been feeling. The Council had no right, and they had to go. How was another story.
“What did Esther say?” Carl asked.
“She seemed to be getting with the programme.” I shook my head. “They live in a different world, have a different mentality, all of them. They don’t understand what it is to be human. If that angel really did tell my grandmother to make me hate evil, then he did a good job because I see it in them.”
“Sometimes I think he intended you to hate humans,” Carl said.
I looked up at him expectantly.
“Well, it was human suffering you went through. I mean, humans are the ones who hurt you. Makes me think he wanted to teach you to hate us rather than evil itself.”
“That backfired,” I said, snorting with laughter. I didn’t tell them what Emmett had said. I saw no point in giving them something new to worry about. I probably should have stayed close to Eddie when I had the chance, but I didn’t think even he would fail to see where my loyalties lay.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Peter lent me his precious car, so I picked up Val and the twins and drove to the meeting point. Cam didn’t come. I wasn’t surprised, but I did feel a little disconcerted as we headed out to the starting point, the place where I would open the gates of Hell.
It occurred to me that what I was doing was scarily dangerous, but the children had to be worth the risk. I was already planning on taking bigger risks later.
“He does this all the time,” Val said.
“What?”
“Cam. He backs out whenever he’s needed.”
Val fell silent, likely mentally preparing herself for a battle. Lorcan was edgy, but Lucia remained calm, and she was the one to watch. She could often see snippets of what was coming, of what might happen, and that might prove invaluable. Sometimes I wondered where the snippets came from because she often drew up images from the past as well, but whatever it was, she was good at it.
I had once found her creepy, but there was truly something angelic about her. I just hoped I hadn’t brought them to a tougher prison.
“Stick with me down there,” I said. “But Lorcan, keep Lucia out of the way of any fighting that might go on. Afterward, either stay with me or hide, but don’t go willingly with anyone else. Let’s not make it easy on the Council.”
Val nodded her agreement. “And don’t let any of them see how useful you are. Never agree to a deal. Just be extra careful.”
“We survived so long around the vampires for a reason,” Lorcan said. “There’s no need to worry about us. Concentrate on the bigger problems.”
There weren’t enough people waiting for us. Our numbers reached thirty tops.
“This is it?” I asked nobody in particular.
“Not many were willing,” Gabe said. “We need to begin as quickly as possible. This kind of gathering will set off alarm bells.”
“Fine.” I raised my voice. “If you don’t keep up, you could get left behind. I’ll try to hold open the gate until everyone gets through, but if there’s trouble and something happens to me, you’re all screwed, pretty much. When I open a door, I can’t guarantee something won’t come out after us, or that it won’t close on top of me, so you’ll need to deal with that, too.”
Many shifted uncomfortably, but I ignored them and moved over to the heavy magic of the pocket. Val and the twins followed me.
“I don’t like this,” Gabe said, so close behind me that I felt his breath against my hair.
“Nobody does,” I said. “But this is what has to happen. We could get lucky.”
Lorcan trembled. “It feels so familiar. It feels like home.”
“Let’s worry about that later,” I said in a low voice, hoping Gabe hadn’t heard him. “I’m just trying to find a weak spot, and then I’ll try to make the gate in the grass. We’ll head down, hopefully, after everyone else. I’m the last one through. Then we’ll push to the front and let Val lead the way. Like I said, Lorcan, any sign of danger and you pull Lucia back. She’s not exactly good at staying out of the way.”
Lucia grinned, but avoided touching me. I was grateful. I didn’t want any knowledge of what we might see in Hell. My task was going to be difficult. I would have to open a number of gates, according to Val. I didn’t know who was in the market, so I couldn’t zone in on them properly, but with Val’s help, we might move in the right direction until we found the way. I was counting on Cam’s ideas about me being a catalyst and projecting to work with Val’s connection to her old home.
I finally found a weak spot in the magic. “Are you all ready? It won’t look like a door, but you have to trust me and push through it. It’ll be disorienting, and there might be something waiting for us, so we need the strongest to go through first.”
“What about your friend?” Coyle’s voice curdled my blood. I wanted to vomit, but I stood tal
l, comforted by the presence of Val and the twins.
“She stays with me,” I said without looking at him. I wasn’t planning on letting the twins or Val out of my sight.
“I’ll go first,” Esther said, closely followed by Aiden. Gabe, surprisingly enough, offered to follow.
“If anyone wants to back out, now’s the time,” I said. “Once we’re through, there’s no turning back, not until we have the children safely with us. And even then, like I said before, no guarantees.”
There were a few grumbles, but nobody left. That was heartening.
I knelt on the ground, feeling my way. Val laid her hand on my shoulder as I had suggested. I concentrated on the market, of what I had heard of it, and zoomed away from myself again. I moved through fire and a confusing mass of darkness and shadows until I came close to hearing children’s voices, but I couldn’t move any further. Something blocked me.
It was the best I could do, I realised, and I returned quickly. I concentrated on what I had seen until I felt something shift beneath my hands. I pushed myself through, past the veil, finding steps before me. I stayed halfway through the gate, keeping one hand on either side, one foot on the first step, one foot on the grass outside, and nodded at Esther. The ranks moved swiftly enough and without incident, aside from Coyle’s evil leer that sent crawling spiders up my arms.
Val moved next, then the twins, and finally, I stepped through completely, letting the door close and trapping us all in Hell. I tried not to panic. Pushing to the front, I made sure Val and the twins followed close behind me.
“Am I far off, do you think?” I asked Val at the head of the line.
“Not too far,” she said. “But farther than I expected. This is the outer level still, same as the place we moved through before. It’s less protected, but it’s a lot more enclosed. We’ll need to move into the next level to find our way.”
“Did I make the steps, or were they already there?” I wondered aloud.
“The places coexist,” Gabe said. “You simply found a way to open up a gateway between the two. The worlds are all joined together, really, but there are very few connections between them.” He glanced at the twins, holding his gaze on Lorcan’s sword for a beat too long. “Or so I thought.”
Val cleared her throat. “We’ll have to walk a dangerous path, but we’ll find ourselves there sooner rather than later. We could take a longer, safer path, but a lot of time would pass. Too much time, perhaps.”
“We’ll cut through,” I decided. “There are enough of us to make a good go of it.”
She nodded and stepped forward. “Follow me,” she said loud enough for those at the back to hear. “Stay close and watch your backs. There are things in the walls and under your feet. There is no safe place here. The first part of our journey might be the easiest, but that doesn’t make it safe.”
We trudged after Val, and I was happy to see she didn’t hesitate. If it seemed as though she didn’t know where we were going, then we would most definitely be screwed. Hesitation meant weakness. Weakness meant trouble, especially in the dark, especially with Coyle around. He had probably only volunteered to make contact with his old crew. My money was so on him being involved with the market.
The first hour was quiet. Too quiet. We trudged silently in groups of three and four through thick, muddy substances. A weird gloomy light prevented the place from being pitch black, but it wasn’t enough to call it bright. We moved down a stone passageway, not unlike the one Val and I had been trapped in, and sometimes I would think I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, but whenever I turned, nothing would be there.
“Watch carefully,” Val said in a low voice, slowing down. Her shoulders bulged, and a few gasps distracted me. “Something’s coming.”
A thundering sound approached, and too late, I realised it was footsteps. The noise came from ahead of us. The hell hound seemed even larger than the last, barely fitting into the corridor, and I ran ahead to take it on. But a yell had me skidding to a stop.
Lorcan.
I turned to see a wormy-looking creature on top of Lucia, its hair a mess of bloody fire. Lucia’s mouth had opened into a silent scream, and dread filled my entire body as I ran toward them. Another creature dropped from the ceiling to the floor between Lorcan and his sister, and everything seemed to happen at once.
I aimed for Lucia, but Val was there first, flinging the creature off of the girl with a swing of her weapon. It fell into two pieces, but both pieces grew until there were two creatures fighting.
Aiden and Esther took care of the new double act, taking care to completely flatten them instead of chopping them to pieces. Another creature attacked Val as Lucia crawled backward in a hurry. I tried to help, but I was ambushed by something with terrifyingly blank eyes. Its features swam as it shifted appearance rapidly, all faces I knew. I cut through it as it wore Peter’s face, then I reached for Val, but Lorcan was there first, his sword driving through the monster with a kind of grace I hadn’t imagined possible. Lorcan’s sword glowed green when he removed it from the dead creature, and the glow gave an eerie look to his determined features.
All around us, creatures were falling to the ground, a variety of monsters that had been unleashed upon us as one. As if they had been waiting for us, I realised as I cut through one sneaking up on Lucia. And then it was over, as quickly as it started.
Our group stood around, panting, leaning on each other and checking for injuries. A couple of shouts of laughter let me know the group remained relatively unharmed.
Lorcan moved to help up his sister, but Val beat him to it, helping Lucia very carefully to her feet. Lucia limped a couple of steps, so Val sheathed her weapon and picked her up.
“I’ll carry her,” she said, a determined look on her face. Lorcan stared at her, but he didn’t argue.
Esther gripped my hand, her cheeks covered in a splatter of some black substance. “We should keep moving.”
“Everyone okay?” I asked.
“A couple of minor injuries. One death. They’ll all be more wary now.”
“Good,” I replied. “They’ll need to be.”
“They knew we were here,” Val said, her voice steady in the midst of extreme tension. “They knew. They were sent to welcome us.”
I worried about who the traitor might be, but the atmosphere changed noticeably as we followed Val, Lucia in her arms like a true fairy tale damsel in distress. Everyone’s eyes were drawn to her, I noticed, and I could see them gearing up to protect their own, to protect the weak ones in the pack. We had fought together. Everything had changed.
“This is why nobody trusts the Council,” I couldn’t help saying as I spotted Gabe and Aiden in deep conversation. “They already knew we were coming.”
Gabe looked up at me. “It might have been a coincidence.”
I screwed up my face, and Lorcan pulled me away before I could start an argument.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
“Don’t confront them now,” he warned. “It won’t work out.”
I tried in vain to wipe demon blood from my hands onto my jeans. “You did well back there,” I told him.
He gazed at the sword in his hand. “It wasn’t me. It was this.”
“Well, whatever it was, keep it up. But maybe we should keep ahead of Val a little now. Just in case.”
He nodded, and we surrounded Val, one in front, one behind, both of us looking around at any sound.
A scream from behind stunned us all, and I ran with Gabe while the shifter siblings watched over my friends.
A Guardian was being sucked up by the ground, having stepped in something living. It pulsed and bubbled around her, the once solid ground giving way to something liquid. Something was eating her, I realised as horror gripped me.
“Help me!” she screamed again, desperation clear in her voice.
Gabe nodded, moved behind her, and slit her throat. She gurgled for a couple of seconds, her blood decorating those standing too c
lose, but she was dead before he had taken more than three steps away from her.
“What the fuck was that?” I hissed.
Gabe shrugged. “She asked for help. I put her out of her misery.”
“That’s not what helping means.”
He faced me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Tough decisions have to be made, Ava. If you can’t make them, then I will. We can’t wait around, and we can’t help those who fall behind. The longer we linger down here, the more dangerous it becomes. For me more than anyone.”
“Why? Why you?”
He gritted his teeth, his fingers pinching me. “Do you understand who rules this domain, Ava? This safe haven for the darkness? One of the fallen. His nightmares come true. His fantasies made living. This is what becomes of us if we stay too long in the darkness. You should watch yourself, too.”
After a while, I understood what he meant. I could feel the darkness seeping into me, a natural occurrence from being in Hell, but the thoughts that wormed their way into my brain were awful. I was driven with the thoughts of the children and how their surroundings must have affected them. How Emmett must have been affected. Mrs. Yaga’s words came back to haunt me.
I kept my eye on Gabe from then on. I trusted him even less than usual. I barely trusted myself, not after I envisioned myself twisting my dagger into Aiden’s chest all because he accidentally bumped against me. The way he glared at me convinced me he was imagining doing the same thing to me.
Val called to me, and I went running, eager to get away from the alpha.
“We can’t go this way,” she said, indicating ahead of us. “We need another gate. Closer this time. It should be easier. We’ve passed through a circle already.”
“A circle?”
“The places you’ve been to have all been on the outer circle of Hell. The further we go in, the more dangerous it is. The market isn’t on the outer circle. It’s not a corridor or a pathway, it’s living quarters, and it isn’t intended to be stumbled upon. Things will get harder from this point in. Let’s just hope they haven’t moved further in already. I think we can probably bet that they already know we’re coming. But even if they don’t, they used to send us out on patrols. We could meet a patrol on our way, so keep an eye out.”
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