5.0 - Light Of The Stygian Orb

by Krista Walsh

  Zach sensed how close the mountainous demon’s hand came to grabbing him, but he missed by an inch, giving Zach just enough time to lurch to the side of the hallway and throw himself into the open repair shaft at the top of the elevator. He latched on to the handle and pulled the door closed as he slid down, blocking any of the others from following him by that route.

  “Shit! Get downstairs, now,” the rumbling demon ordered.

  Zach slammed against the metal wall of the cage as his body swung from the ceiling. He glanced down, but in the dim light he couldn’t gauge how far he had to fall. Closing his eyes, he let himself drop.

  Something heavy cracked beneath his weight — a chair he’d picked up with the intention of fixing it. It toppled over and sent him sprawling across the floor as a burning heat tore through the thickness of his calf muscle. Wheezing, Zach grabbed at his leg, his fingers brushing over a long shard of wood. He pulled it out and squeezed his jaws shut to stop the cry from bursting between his lips.

  More blood seeped through his shirt. He fingered the slashed material and winced as he made contact with a gash on his chest he had no idea how he’d received.

  Once he was free, he used the wall of the elevator to prop himself up, then hobbled through the open doorway and turned right, heading down the corridor beyond the boiler room. His leg trembled with every step, and he reached for the wall to hold himself up, but when his hand left bloody prints on the white paint, he released his grip and hurtled forward. He couldn’t go back to get Dusty or to warn the Collegiate. The demons’ voices were already getting closer. He had to get out.

  Although the stairs beside the elevator would take him to the nearest door, he didn’t want to run the risk of walking right into his hunters. Instead, he pressed deeper into the college basement, following the maze of storage and maintenance rooms.

  He had made this place his fortress, and he crossed his fingers that his efforts would pay off.

  The voices veered left where he had veered right, but he suspected it wouldn’t give him much added time. He ducked beneath a support beam that had toppled over years ago, hugged the wall as he stumbled up a set of rotten stairs, and pushed his way through the rusted door out into the back parking lot.

  If they caught him here, he would fail. He was on the opposite side of the college from the main street, and far from the row of residential houses where someone could potentially hear him crying out. There would be no witnesses.

  It was also the closest door to the maze of alleyways where he could lose himself, as long as the maylin didn’t catch his scent.

  Sucking in a deep breath and holding it to avoid the agony of his insides from causing too much distraction, Zach started toward the dark opening that would lead him to what he hoped was safety.

  He just had to make it a few more feet, and from there he could let his body choose his fate.

  A sharp screech cut through the silence of the parking lot, followed by a series of crashes and bangs. Zach guessed that someone had hit the support beam over the stairs too hard. He’d set up that emergency escape to be a bit of a puzzle. Any pressure on the wrong part of the steps would send the loosened beams overhead crumbling into the basement.

  He hoped the damage had crushed at least one of the demons under its weight. And that the accident had gained him enough extra time.

  Pain seared his insides as well as his outsides — throbbing, pounding, stabbing. His breath came faster and his heartbeat grew more irregular, bouncing around in his chest as though it had lost all connection with his body’s systems and was now trying to get free of its bindings.

  Nausea circled in his guts, but he sucked in air to keep himself from being sick. He couldn’t take the risk of leaving a trail behind that would make it easier for the maylin to follow. He took care not to collapse against the walls when his legs threatened to give out, staggering forward instead and keeping his feet on pure willpower.

  He was certain there would be a bit of a blood trail, but it couldn’t be helped. The chances of escaping the demons completely were small. All he could hope was that they found him too late for it to matter.

  Summoning up the last of his strength, he rounded the corner and disappeared into the urban labyrinth.

  17

  Molly brushed the tears from her eyes as she headed down the street.

  Her cheeks burned with humiliation. It was as though her nightmares about showing up to school naked had finally come true, but in the worst possible way. She could have handled being exposed to people whose opinions she cared little about, but this had been Steve. Not only her best friend, but the one person she’d ever met that she had deeper feelings for. Although he’d never given her reason to believe her dreams would come true, he’d also never made her feel like she was completely out of her mind for hoping.

  Now he’d knocked her off her cloud, forcing her to admit she didn’t know him as well as she thought she had.

  There she’d been, baring her soul to him over the last twelve months, and he’d believed she was pushing him away with fairy tales? It was so embarrassing. He must have thought she was either a complete idiot or some kind of child who couldn’t cope with reality.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t understand his disbelief. She was talking about magic, for goodness’ sake. How she’d been abducted by a warlock for saving a demon, then gotten attacked by ghouls, then saved by a sorceress. He would have to have been insane to think that was all true without question.

  But he should have let her know earlier that he thought she was making it up. She wished he had laughed at her whimsy or offered his own stories. Shown some kind of a sign that would have suggested he saw her as just a good storyteller. Then she could have made up her mind whether to keep her secrets to herself or find a way to convince him.

  Her shoulder ached where the gouges lingered, and she rubbed her hand over her jacket to try to soothe the tension causing the muscles in her neck to bunch up. Part of her wished Daphne hadn’t healed her as well as she had. Evidence of what she’d survived would have slapped Steve in the face with the truth. Instead, the sorceress had done too good a job, and now he probably thought she was hurting herself just to encourage her own wild delusions.

  She stuffed her hand into her pocket to warm her stiffening knuckles as she guided her cane across the ground with the other, checking for cracks in the sidewalk.

  Maybe she’d overreacted, but how could she help it? Everything she’d talked about was having so much bearing on her life — even more so now that she knew her very challenges had been caused by otherworldly beings — and he had discounted her experiences as though they didn’t matter.

  Her blood sizzled. All this time he’d been laughing in his sleeve, while she’d been struggling with having been kidnapped and attacked — with having killed a man.

  If she wanted to be fair to Steve, she’d have to admit she’d left out some of those more personal details, so she couldn’t hold it against him for not being there for her. But she wasn’t ready to be fair to him yet.

  When she calmed down, then she would talk to him. She would take the time to convince him that she wasn’t pulling stories out of some hit Hollywood movie. For now, she just wanted to be angry. And think about how nice it would be to throw something.

  She’d intended to head straight to Zach’s, but her thoughts had stripped away all conscious thought of where she was going and before long she found herself unlocking the front door of her own house and stepping inside.

  As though the close confines of the kitchen were squeezing her chest, she suddenly couldn’t breathe and realized the last place she wanted to be was at home where her parents would want to know what was wrong.

  But the house seemed quiet. To be certain, she called out for her mom and dad, but there was no answer. She pulled out her cell phone and was surprised to find she had a message waiting. A few button presses later, and her mother’s voice filtered through the Bluetooth speaker.

  “
Hey, sweetheart. Dad and I wanted to go out and talk things over. The house was feeling a little small. We won’t be long, but in case you get home and we’re not back, there are sandwiches in the fridge. See you soon. Love from us both.”

  The message ended, and Molly sagged against the counter, relieved that she didn’t need to explain her current mood to anyone. Telling them she and Steve had fought again would mean going into why they had fought the first time, and she wasn’t ready for the shitstorm her father would set loose if he knew about Zach. Even her open-minded mother would likely have concerns about her daughter spending time with a strange older man. And Molly was definitely not in a good mental place to try to explain.

  At the thought of Zach, her initial desire to be hanging out with him right now returned. Her mom was right: the house did feel too small.

  She grabbed the sandwiches from the fridge and put them into her backpack next to the front door. Then she went upstairs and grabbed her archery case from the corner. In an empty trade college, there had to be something she could set up for target practice to vent some of her frustration. She wouldn’t mind showing off a few of her skills to Zach, anyway — maybe it would make him see that she was ready to join in on whatever he was planning against the demons coming after him.

  She slung the case over her shoulder, grabbed her cane, and walked out, focused on working off her anger.

  In spite of her churning mental state, she was able to track her way to the college without incident, but as she headed along the front of the building toward the side door, unfamiliar voices drifted toward her from around the corner.

  She stopped and pressed her shoulder against the wall to remain out of sight, straining to pick up what the voices were saying.

  “The blood trail continues on from here,” a woman said. The muscles between Molly’s shoulders tensed, and she didn’t even let herself breathe in case she missed some of the conversation. “I doubt it will take the demons long to find him.”

  “With that much blood left behind, he’ll likely be dead before they do,” said another woman. At least, she thought it was another. The dry cadences were so similar, it was difficult to tell.

  “Good,” added a third — or was it the first? “They won’t be able to collect enough if it’s soaked into the ground.”

  The voices came closer. Her heart thudding against her ribs, Molly reached out for some place to hide, and her fingers brushed a large bush a few steps behind her. It was barely more than a bundle of spindly twigs by the feel of it, but better than nothing. She crouched behind it, her twisted knee screaming, just as the voices came around the corner.

  “The daemelus is a fool,” one of the women said.

  “It no longer matters. Whether he dies or he’s caught, he is beyond our concern. We’ll need to proceed as though the enemy has what it needs. It’s better to err on the side of caution.”

  They fell into silence as they continued on. A few seconds later, a car engine started. When the sound of the vehicle passed beyond her, Molly released the breath she’d been holding and leaned against the wall. Did she dare rise from her hiding place yet? Were there other people waiting around the corner?

  And who were they, anyway? Based on what they’d said, the demons had returned and Zach was injured. Had the women been the ones to send the demons after him?

  Molly’s hands trembled against the brick wall as she struggled to keep her aching knee from giving out and sending her sprawling across the cold earth. She had no way of knowing if anyone else was around. If they were quiet enough, she’d never sense them until they were too close. She couldn’t take that risk.

  But if Zach was hurt and on the run, she couldn’t leave him to fend for himself. Sure, he was a large monster of a man who could watch his own back, but he’d looked out for her. She couldn’t abandon him now.

  She also couldn’t go alone.

  Reaching her shaking fingers into her jacket pocket, she pulled out her cell phone, scrambling to come up with the name of someone she could call. Her parents were out of the question. She might have called Steve once upon a time, but that no longer seemed a valid option. Sure, it’d be a good way to prove she’d been telling the truth, but it could also put him in danger. If he even believed her enough to come.

  That left Daphne. Molly cursed herself for not thinking to get her number on their drive home.

  Think, Molly, think.

  Normally that mantra did nothing for her, but today, by some miracle, the Chronicle popped into her head. She didn’t have a direct route to the sorceress, but at least she could use a workaround. Hopefully she wouldn’t be left on hold for too long.

  Pulling up her mobile internet browser, she spoke the newspaper’s name into the voice recognition search, keeping her voice low. The phone’s voice system read off the options as she moved her thumb across the screen. When she reached the “Contact Us” link, she clicked and began to scroll through the names. The pad of her trembling finger kept jumping around the screen, directing her places she didn’t want to go, but eventually she found the contact for the newspaper’s crime division.

  Hitting the dial button, Molly leaned her shoulder against the wall, careful not to crush her archery case or the backpack full of sandwiches.

  Dusty.

  A new wave of concern rushed through her as she imagined the poor kitten hiding somewhere in Zach’s home. At least, Molly hoped she was hiding somewhere. She didn’t want to imagine the worst-case scenario. The demons she’d faced hadn’t seemed the sorts to let a kitten go because she was cute.

  “The New Haven Chronicle, Peter Quinn speaking.”

  “Hi, Peter,” she said, doing her best to keep her voice quiet. “My name is Molly. I’m hoping to speak with Daphne Heartstone.”

  “She’s not at her desk right now, can I be of any help? I’m also a journalist for this department.”

  Molly gritted her teeth. “This is something that needs to go directly to Daphne.”

  A moment’s hesitation. “Is this a personal call? If so, you’ll have to call her personal line.”

  “If I had her personal line, do you think I’d be calling here?” she asked, and breathed to keep herself calm. “Look, it’s a bit of an emergency. If you could just put me through to her voicemail, that would be really great.”

  He released a harsh puff of air that popped deep inside Molly’s head. She held the phone away, but didn’t have a chance to call him out on his lousy behavior. He had already transferred the call.

  After three rings, the line clicked. “Daphne Heartstone.”

  “Thank God it’s you,” Molly said.

  “Molly?”

  “That jerkwad told me you weren’t around.”

  “What jerkwad?”

  “Peter Quinn.”

  “Bastard,” Daphne said. “He was probably trying to steal my byline. What’s going on?”

  Now that Molly had the sorceress on the phone, her throat tightened and panic threatened to overwhelm her. She dug her nails into her palm to help her find strength.

  “I’m at the college. I got here and heard people talking about Zach. I think he’s really hurt and those demons are after him again. The people who were talking seem to have left, but I don’t know if there’s anyone else around.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’m out front. I ducked behind some bushes, but they might not keep me hidden for long.”

  She crossed her fingers that Daphne wouldn’t dismiss her worries. Her knees almost gave out when the sorceress said, “Get out of there. Move to a safe distance and wait for me. I won’t be long. I have your cell number now, so when I get there I’ll give you a call and we can meet up.”

  “Thank you,” Molly said.

  “Don’t thank me yet. I just found out what the orb is, and it doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling. So let’s see if we can go save the big guy. And maybe the rest of the world in the process.”

  ***

  Molly did as D
aphne suggested. After counting to three hundred to check for anyone else walking by, she took the chance of leaving her hiding spot and crossed the street. She found a picnic table outside a corner store to wait, where the demons would be unlikely to come for her if they recognized her.

  Every minute, she checked her phone again to make sure she hadn’t missed a call or a text from Daphne. When the phone finally did vibrate, she jumped, upsetting a can of something that had been left behind by an earlier bench tenant.

  She dragged her backpack away from any possible spill and answered the phone.

  “Where are you now?” Daphne asked.

  Molly told her.

  “I see you. I’ll be there in a second.”

  True to her word, Daphne’s voice soon approached her.

  “Where did you hear those women talking?”

  “Up near a side door that Zach uses to go in and out. I don’t know if that’s where the blood is, though. It sounded like they were referring to something farther away.”

  “Let’s go look for ourselves.” A moment’s silence. “You might want to get your bow ready before we go in.”

  Molly did as instructed. She unzipped her case and strung her bow with deft familiarity. Although she’d gone through the process so many times it was ingrained in her muscle memory, the steps came too slowly today under her fumbling fingers.

  She strapped the quiver around her thigh and this time squeezed eight arrows into it. Without knowing how many demons she might be facing, she didn’t want to meet them unprepared.

  “We can throw the case and your backpack in my trunk,” Daphne said. “It’s better if we go in light.”

  They crossed the street to her car, then started toward the college.

  “I can’t say I like the idea of bringing a teenager with me,” Daphne said as they walked, sounding more like she was talking to herself than to Molly. “No matter how skilled she might be. But I don’t trust myself to go in alone. I’ve worked too damn hard to get a grip on my magic, and I’ll be damned if I let a few angry demons ruin my streak.” Gravel crunched as she pulled to a halt, and Molly jumped as Daphne rested both hands on her shoulders. “If I tell you to run, you run, all right? No arguing.”