I heard someone cry “There!” but the wind picked up, temporarily blinding me as my ponytail whipped my face and dead leaves went flying. Then with a thud and crashing of crumbling stone, the shadow landed atop the far wall. The wind died, and I stared into the red eyes of a demon.
Chapter Twenty
The demon’s eyes glowed. Glowed like something I’d never seen before. Lots of furies had red eyes, but as this demon—this thing that had allegedly created the furies—locked my gaze, it became clear that the furies were piss-poor imitations of it.
It wore only scraps of light-colored clothing. Whether that was by choice or because the clothes it had worn before its imprisonment had disintegrated, I couldn’t say. The scraps were thin and loose, but they covered the essential bits. Bits that curved and shockingly suggested the demon was female. So few furies were, and the accounts I’d read inevitably referred to the demons as its. Her face, however, was androgynous, at least to my human-ish eyes.
She squatted on the stone edge, wings settling against her back, looking like neither a dinosaur nor a dragon in my opinion. Her dark purple skin, so dark it was almost black, had an iridescent sheen, and it rippled in the fading sunlight. She might have been covered in scales or feathers. I couldn’t make out details well enough to say which.
The one thing I could tell was that she was huge. Furies were always big, a trait I assumed was a combination of magic and a propensity on their part to choose tall, burly men to join their ranks. But maybe I’d been wrong and it was all magic. The purple fiend in front of me had to be close to eight feet tall with limbs that seemed disproportionate to her torso.
“Now what?” Mitch whispered, giving voice to my own question.
We’d reached a kind of temporary stalemate. She stared, and we gawked. Even Lucen, Gi and the magi were transfixed, as though the demon had us each locked in an epic staring contest. Only she could stare down over a dozen people at once.
The demon cocked her head to the side, and her face turned quizzical. Mannerisms just human enough to be understandable suggested she was studying us. What would her assessment be?
“We need to move,” I said in a low voice, trying to break the spell. One of these creatures, possibly this very one, had killed the Gryphons who’d been stationed here. It couldn’t be long before she decided to do the same to us.
I started forward, but invisible hands seemed to grasp my body. My skull felt as though it were constricting. Pressure enveloped my brain, and magic unlike any I’d felt before poked at my soul.
When furies did that, they made you angry. When satyrs did it, you were filled with lust. Whatever this creature did, it turned my mind off. I was paralyzed, stricken numb and dumb and sensing this creature rummaging through my brain. Strange words flittered across my mind. It was speaking to me, but I couldn’t understand the language, though the longer it held me in its grasp, the more of those words turned to English. It was ravaging my memories, sucking the knowledge right out of me.
I closed my eyes, willing myself to fight it, to put all that training with Claudius to use. But the demon hadn’t actually initiated a bond with me. I had no power to draw on. And it laughed, threw its head back and howled with amusement at our expense.
Miserable Jessica, came a voice as sultry and strange as I’d ever heard. What a creature you are. A failure at the only thing you ever wanted. A disgrace to your family. A feast to your lovers. A foe to your friends.
My muscles tensed, pain rippling through my head. My thoughts turned to a memory so old I hadn’t thought of it in years—the day the Gryphons had visited my elementary school. Two of them had come, a man and a woman, both regal and powerful in their black-and-gold uniforms. The teachers treated them with respect, almost a reverence. That was what I was going to be. That was my calling. I had the gift, inherited from my father.
Flash. I doubled over as if smacked by an invisible hand. I struggled to remain upright, and the air weighed down my limbs. Then my sense of reality vanished once more.
In my head, it was twelve years later. I was on the subway, fleeing from school, clutching the metal rail. I was praying not to puke. The train swayed as it rounded a corner, and I clamped my mouth shut. My gift kept flaring, sending tingles of power from my head down to my fingertips. I could sense things, unnatural things, about the other passengers, and they made no sense. My gift was dying. The Gryphons said any gift that didn’t mature by the time the gifted turned eighteen would vanish, and my birthday was in four hours. My face was clenched with misery. I was so stupid. It wasn’t as though my life was over, after all. No, just my dreams. Just everything I’d worked and hoped for since I’d been identified as gifted at age six. The words of the three Gryphons at the Academy rang in my ears. Their faces were a practiced mask of sorrow. “While your potential is very strong, there’s something about it that’s not quite right. I’m afraid with these doubts we can’t admit you to the Gryphons’ apprentice program. We’re sorry. Not everyone’s gift develops.”
A growling noise snapped me back to the present, and I realized it was me. I clasped my hands to my head. My brain rattled with the tremor of the demon’s laugher. Get out, get out. Get out!
Still, it gave me no threads, no power to snag. This bitch wasn’t attempting to enslave me, not yet anyway. But if it could take over my brain so casually, how could I ever hope to defeat it if I did try?
Fuck. I was going to fail at this too. Why should that have been any surprise? When could I possibly ever succeed at something I wanted? I should accept my fate and move on. The universe loved screwing with me. I was a failure—a twenty-eight-year-old ex-waitress who moonlighted as some sort of vigilante; who couldn’t bother to overcome her misery cravings in order to maintain a normal relationship; who loved a guy who could never care the same way in return; who’d spent most of her life lying to her family and friends, and yet pretended to be doing something worthwhile. Pretended her pale imitation of helping humanity was something noble, something other than illegal, immoral shit that was every bit as rotten as what preds did.
I screamed this time, punching the air in lieu of the traitorous thoughts. Lies! All lies, I yelled in my head.
Her voice answered back: You think so?
She thrust me through time again. The June sun was warm, the breeze off the Charles River cool. My cell phone rang constantly with friends and teachers frantically searching for me, and I ignored it.
“I noticed you last year,” Lucen was saying to my eighteen-year-old self. It was the first time we met. A long trench coat protected his skin from the late-afternoon sun; sunglasses covered his unsettlingly lovely eyes. “I’d never seen anyone with so strong a gift be denied entry into the Gryphons, and I was curious why. So I watched you. Once it dawned on me, it was obvious. So I came back this year because I knew you’d be denied again. I thought we should talk.”
“Ah-ha.” My throat was dry. The words came out in a croak. “So you know my name and you know why I’m a failure? Wonderful.”
Lucen smiled, and my knees shook. Just that simple gesture could turn me upside down. I’d be toast if he blasted me with his real power. The thought made me ill.
“You’re not a failure. Far from it.” Lucen wrapped a strand of my hair around his finger. “You’re extremely gifted. But, somehow, like us.”
I forced out a laugh. This was insane. How bad could my day get? First denial into the Gryphons. Now a satyr who’d decided to toy with me. Probably right before he knocked me on my ass and turned me into a lust addict.
Flash and I was back in the present. Lucen saved my life, bitch. You’re picking at the wrong memories. I gritted my teeth, hand tightening around the hilt of my sword. If you’re such a badass, get off that wall and prove it.
A stillness settled over me, and fear and anticipation mingled in my blood with the possibility that the demon would take me up on my taunt. Then she l
aunched another blow to my soul that sent me physically staggering backward.
I sank deeper into my memories, revisiting every last scrap of a pitiful life buried in my subconscious. I gave myself over to visions of my father’s hero’s funeral, to the presentation of his plaque that hung on Gryphon headquarters’ wall. Thank goodness he wasn’t alive to see what had become of me. I was watching from afar as Bridget and my other friends jumped and squealed for joy over their graduation from the Academy, how they’d forgotten all about me in their exuberance.
I was every failure who’d walked the Academy’s grounds, every addict I was helpless to save, every ghoul lying broken and bruised in the streets. I was pushing Lucen off me in fear, feeling Steph recoil in horror as I told her the truth, hitting Andre with a chair as we succumbed to a powerful curse. I was the cause of Olef’s death and the thousands of others who’d perished in the chaos since the Pit opened. I was the key to all misery and suffering everywhere—a freak of nature who never should have been and who deserved to be destroyed for her crimes.
Nausea welled inside me. Tears pricked at my eyes. And anger, oh glorious, burning, raging hatred, flooded my bloodstream. This bitch couldn’t define me. She was going to die.
Give in to the anger. Let her in and draw on her power.
I had just a second to comprehend that a bond was forming between us, power I could use, when it all went to hell. Spasms wracked my body. Pain, deep and blunt, pounded every nerve as the demon snatched back its power, and my guts felt like they were being ripped from my insides.
I screamed, and the sound brought me to reality. The room was alive with terrified voices. Gryphons writhed on the floor, hands on their heads. Lucen and the other preds were on their knees, seething in agony. Even the magi were hunched over, motionless.
I alone seemed capable of moving, and I raised my blade and charged the wall. The demon took off, spreading her wings and launching herself into the ruins. A popping noise echoed off the walls, and the air pressure lifted with the demon’s spell. The cries of misery and fury changed to comprehensible voices. The Gryphons peeled themselves from the stones, and Tom shouted orders. Lucen and Gi appeared at my sides.
“Go, go, go!”
I could hear Tom yelling behind me as the demon swooped closer. Clawlike fingers swiped at my head and raked my hair. I raised the blade, but she was far too fast and my moves were more self-defense than attack. I stumbled, and Lucen grabbed my arm.
An explosion rocked the area. Gunfire followed. I spun around, searching for the demon, and found the room had dissolved into chaos. Not everyone had snapped out of the demon’s mental clutches. Red-eyed Gryphons were fighting goblins and each other. Equipment had toppled over. The demon beat her wings furiously, creating more wind that blew precious materials across the floor and out of the magi’s grasp.
“Get in there,” Tom yelled at us. “The spell is ready. Go!” He shoved a p-squad member, knocking the woman out of her stupor. She blinked a couple times, her eyes returning to brown, and raced toward me.
I was already standing in the mist, and the oval gate hovered maybe ten feet away. I sheathed my sword and ran toward it, hoping Lucen was on my heels. Above me, the demon screeched. Abandoning the magi, she stormed our way, and the wind from her wings reeked of blood and salt. I darted left then right, but she was too large. Her enormous feet touched down in front of me, blocking my way.
I reached for my knife this time, but she swung a powerful arm and sent me flying. Lucen called my name as I scrambled to my feet. More yelling. More thunder. The ground rumbled beneath my unsteady feet.
“Another one’s coming,” someone shouted, and I didn’t dare look.
Every way I turned, however the angle, the purple demon stood between me and the gate. Her mouth opened wide in what could have been a grin, revealing rows of the pointed teeth furies favored.
My gun, where was my gun with the special bullets? I searched around my belt, but I couldn’t grab it in time. Strong hands—Lucen’s hands—pushed me down, and he tossed a curse grenade at the demon. The bomb sent gray smoke into the air, but the demon merely flapped her wings a few times and it dissipated.
Lucen had gotten her attention though. Snarling, she took two pounding steps our way. I reached again for my knife, and Gi burst out of nowhere and rammed right into the demon. Although she towered over him, he was no small man himself, and he held a salamander blade in his hand when they collided. Together, they crashed into the floor.
Fear for Gi, for what the demon might do to him, rushed through me. Then Lucen and Tom were yelling, and I tore my gaze away. This was my opening, and I seized it. Without knowing who was with me and who was lost in the fray, I dashed toward the black gate. Eyes closed, I hurled myself through.
The world around me vanished. Chaos became silence, and the air was sucked from my lungs. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound emerged. I had no voice. I had no form. Muscles and bone twisted. My guts compressed. I reached out, but my hands had vanished. I was as insubstantial as smoke.
My body reappeared just as suddenly, and painfully to boot. Palms and knees collided with the ground, and my lungs filled with air. Gasping, I lifted my head and found myself in prison.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sweat beaded on my skin as I shifted to a defensive crouch, and my hand fell on the hilt of my sword. It was hot in here. Dry too. And curiously empty. Nothing stirred, not even the air.
Cautiously, I let go of the hilt and lowered my arm to my side. The ground beneath my feet wasn’t ground at all, but dirt over stone. I traced a finger through the grit, examining more closely what I’d landed on. No, not dirt entirely. Mostly it was sand, and the stones beneath it were rough, unpleasant slabs. I raised my hands to my face and discovered they were bleeding. Great.
Wiping them on my pants, I circled in place. I’d expected to land among a hoard of hungry demons, but this emptiness, while probably better, was eerie. However our ancestors had created this prison, they hadn’t done a perfect job. To judge by the scene, the demons had broken free of their shackles long before the Pit’s door was opened. The question that remained was: if they hadn’t all left yet, where had they gone?
At my back, the doorway that led here was reduced to a thin line that wobbled in midair. My heartbeat slowed to something closer to normal as I stepped away from it. I was still hoping someone friendly might follow me, and I didn’t need them landing on me if so. After all, the room I was in was plenty big and hauntingly silent.
If I could even call it a room. From where I stood, the space stretched out in both directions without much variation. The Gryphons and magi had entertained a lot of speculation about what we would find in the Pit, but no one could provide useful answers. The best theory we had was that the prison would resemble whatever its creators had thought it should look like, and that could have been anything. Research about the time period and climate during its creation provided hints, but their usefulness was debatable.
It would appear that some of those hints were correct. The heat, for one. It would have been hot as hell at that latitude during the summer, and likely dry too. If that weather had been on the minds of the humans, magi and preds who built this place, it stood to reason the prison would reflect it. But magic was malleable, as one of our own magi had reminded us. Just as the prison’s creators would influence the initial design, over time the demons would alter it too with their own thoughts and desires. The only thing they couldn’t do was alter themselves a door.
I was guessing the room I found myself in, however, was basically untouched. Heavy iron bars and heavier shackles, a low ceiling, and the stench of old sweat and blood all screamed grisly, ancient prison to me. There wasn’t a window or a hint of natural light, but then, where would that light have come from? I was standing in a magically created bubble. One lit by millennia-old torches that were equally surreal.
; The first sound I’d heard since I arrived—besides my boots scuffing the stones—came from behind. I reached for my blade again, but it quickly became clear that what I was hearing were voices. People shouting at a great distance. I recognized a couple of them and realized I was hearing the fighting back at the castle.
Before I could figure out what that meant, the gateway’s thin line swelled into an oval similar to what I’d jumped through. From out of the blackness, Tom appeared. Like I had, he found the floor in an uncontrolled fall, and the bag of supplies he carried dropped from his back. I started to run over to assist, but more people were on his tail. In a heap, they landed nearby, cursing and gasping for breath and rolling out of each other’s way.
The doorway snapped back to its original shape as though the newcomers had been stretching it like a rubber band. The sounds from France disappeared.
Relief flooded through me, and I grabbed one of the many stone tables in the middle of the floor for support. Lucen had made it through, along with Mitch and two other Gryphons. Both were part of World’s p-squad, but neither had spoken much to me.
“What the…?” The collective comments from the group parroted my initial thoughts in three languages.
Groaning in pain, Mitch pulled himself to his knees. When he saw me, his shoulders sagged with obvious relief. The p-quad duo got to their feet first, hands on their weapons, but they faltered as they also discovered we were alone. On the floor, Tom beckoned me over as he opened his bag.
I started his way then noticed Lucen hadn’t moved much. His forehead rested on the stones, his legs pulled under him. I could see his back rise and fall, so he breathed, but he didn’t get up. Was the trip through the gate affecting him differently than the rest of us? Ignoring Tom, I rushed to his side and placed a hand on his back.
He stiffened. “Please remove that.” His voice was soft and vaguely pained.
Misery Happens Page 21