The gate.
The orb flattened into a disc that grew as it rotated, and then another ring formed in a flash of yellow light, slowly turning in the opposite direction to the first one. A blue wave rippled from that ring as symbols appeared around it and another one formed, this one rotating in the same direction as the centre, but slower.
The wraith looked from the growing gate to Keras and the others, and then finally Marek.
A slow smile curled his lips.
Sent a chill down Marek’s spine.
The bastard knew the amulet wasn’t the key. It was right there in his violet eyes, in that satisfied glow they held. Marek’s first intuition had been right and they were too late. This wasn’t the first attempt to open the gate. This was a trap.
The wraith had been waiting here, aware that Marek would realise what had happened at some point and would come to this place to try and stop him.
And in doing so, Marek had exposed the gate to danger.
The wraith twisted the amulet into his fists and crushed it.
The gate remained.
One of his brothers cursed. Probably Valen.
He looked towards him and cursed too as a violet and black portal formed in the midst of the daemons and then another one followed it, and another, until there were six of them. As soon as they were large enough, daemons poured from them.
There was no way his brothers and Eva could handle so many.
Marek looked between them and the wraith where he approached the gate. He needed to help his brothers, but he needed to protect the gate too. Maybe he could do both.
He focused on the gate as he summoned his powers and the ground shook beneath his boots.
Caterina grabbed one of the fallen swords from the dirt and battled the daemons as they turned their sights on him, clearly sensing the rising threat coming from him.
He fought to keep his focus on the gate, on stopping it from opening completely. He dug deep into the ground, past the earth to the rock below, and pictured a ring around the gate.
Towering slabs of hard earth and huge monoliths of rock burst from the ground in a wave, running anti-clockwise from beyond the wraith and the gate, towards Valen and everyone to his left, and past him.
A vicious snarl left Keras’s lips as he twisted and slammed his fist against one of the walls that sprung up right beside him, shattering it with a single blow, despite the strength of it.
His brother was formidable.
Marek had never seen anyone break one of his walls before, not with such ease at least.
Marek stepped to the other side of the wall of earth and rock and looked to his right, commanding it to continue to form.
Several dozen daemons poured into the inner ring before he could close it. They ran through the gate, and the rings sparked and blackened, the power it emitted pulsing in a strong wave through Marek. One of the daemons lingered too long and went down screaming as the gate reacted more severely, a wave of colourful light bursting across it as it tried to purge the taint and reset itself.
The wraith eased a step back from it and guided the illusionist behind him.
Keras appeared within the wall and cut through the daemons, taking two down with a single blow before he turned his sights on a third and then a fourth. He wasn’t alone.
Caterina suddenly appeared to Marek’s left, looked around herself and then sprang into action, her blade a silver blur as she attacked the daemons, driving them back and buying Marek time.
He wouldn’t waste it.
Marek focused on the gate rather than the daemons, trusting Caterina to deal with them and keep them from him. The rings began to slow and the disc began to shrink.
The wraith unleashed an unholy snarl.
“Marek?” A soft female voice invaded his mind.
Marek ignored it. It wasn’t real. She wasn’t real. He refused to look at Airlea but he was aware of her beside him, moving towards him. He kept his gaze on the gate, his focus on his duty as the wraith raised his hands.
Five points of light appeared around the outer ring of the gate, swirling violet orbs streaked with green, and they grew as the wraith murmured low words. Power charged the air around Marek and he fought the gate as it slowed to a halt and then began to open again.
“Shit,” he muttered and redoubled his effort, attempting to push back against whatever power was in the incantation the wraith was chanting. He risked a glance away from the gate, trying to find his brother. “Keras.”
Keras appeared beside him, took one look at the gate as the five points of light moved outwards and the discs grew larger, another ring appearing.
Not Marek’s doing.
Keras raised his hand and shadows shrouded the gate. The power humming in the air weakened and Marek focused everything he had on the gate, on convincing the damned thing that it wanted to close.
Purple beams shot up from amidst the shadows, curved towards each other and twisted around to form a dome above the gate. The shadows separated.
Keras grunted and stretched his hand out to them, his arm shaking as he splayed his fingers and the shadows writhed.
Attempting to obey him.
Holes began to appear in them, patches where the colours of the gate shone through, chasing back the darkness.
And then they began to close.
Keras was winning.
His brother stiffened, stared wide-eyed directly ahead of him, and his shoulders slackened as his arm fell to his side.
The shadows evaporated, revealing the gate, and the power contained in the violet orbs and the words the wraith was chanting rose again, pushing down on Marek as he fought the gate, trying to force it closed before it opened enough that someone could pass through it safely.
“Keras,” he snapped, but his brother didn’t move, just kept staring.
Staring at something that wasn’t there.
“Daimon,” Marek hollered. “Take her down!”
Before that pain that was steadily building in Keras’s green eyes reached a crescendo and he unleashed it all on the world.
Whatever the illusionist was showing his brother, it was tearing him apart.
Daimon appeared beside him, took one look at Keras, and said, “Has to be Enyo.”
Cal came thundering out of the black vapour trail of his teleport and grabbed Keras, pulling him around to face him. Keras snarled and tried to look back at the empty space where whatever he was seeing was playing out for him.
“Get him out of here,” Marek bit out.
Cal’s eyes widened. “I’m not that strong. He isn’t going to budge.”
Damn it.
“Do something,” Marek snapped at Daimon.
His brother grabbed Calistos and pulled him away from Keras, towards the illusionist where she stood behind the wraith, her silver eyes glassy. Was attempting to control more than one illusion taking its toll on her?
He looked around and found no sign of Airlea. The daemon was putting all of her effort into destroying Keras.
Keras slowly reached for the ring around his thumb.
Marek frowned as he didn’t spin it.
He started to pull it off.
“Don’t do it.” Marek grabbed his arm and shook him. “Whatever you’re seeing, it’s not real. It’s a lie, Keras.”
His brother slowly turned empty green eyes on him.
“Shut her down!” Marek hollered to Daimon and Calistos, and slapped Keras. “Snap out of it.”
Keras’s eyes went pitch black.
He lashed out at Marek with his claws.
This wasn’t good.
Either striking his brother had really pissed him off, or the illusionist was attempting to pull him into whatever Keras was seeing, turning him against Marek.
He raised his arm to block Keras’s next blow and the sense of power in the air grew stronger as his focus shifted away from the gate. Panic lanced him. If he didn’t do something, it was going to open, and he had the dreadful feeling that it wo
uld stay open.
He needed to break those points of light. Somehow. He just wasn’t sure how.
Keras lashed out at him again and Marek had to step to avoid his shadows as they attacked, shooting towards his legs. He reappeared in a clearing on the other side of the gate.
His brother’s gaze whipped to him.
A vicious snarl pealed from his lips as he bared his fangs.
Keras swept his arm up and Marek realised his mistake too late to stop it.
A wave of shadows erupted from the ground, cutting in a line straight towards him.
Right through the heart of the gate.
His lungs seized as he threw himself to his left, as he hit the dirt and barely avoided being struck by the shadows. His eyes leaped to the gate and widened.
Several of the glyphs in the rings sparked and stuttered, little more than shattered pieces now. The rings halted.
Not good.
Marek looked through the gate to his brothers.
Daimon and Cal both stopped fighting the daemons and looked at the gate, and then at Keras, their wide eyes reflecting the colourful light it emanated as it slowly began to glow brighter.
Cal’s blue eyes met Marek’s and resolve filled them.
He wanted to tell his brother not to do it, but they had no other option. They needed to close the gate before the daemons could destroy it now it was seized open, and the only way to do that was to seal it.
Shutting it down completely and removing all power from it.
A process that might kill Calistos.
His brother didn’t hesitate.
He sprinted for the gate, ripping his vambraces from his forearms as he ran at it, his blond hair streaming behind him.
The wraith signalled the illusionist and she turned her sights on Cal.
Marek’s stomach fell.
They were going to use illusions against Calistos to buy themselves time to destroy the gate.
Valen appeared with Eva, and Daimon joined him as he launched himself at the daemons swarming around the illusionist and the wraith, a living shield that his brothers would be able to tear through if they had enough time.
But time was against them.
His gaze flickered past the daemons to Keras as his brother staggered backwards and looked around himself, shock rippling across his face as his green eyes landed on the gate. The illusionist had released him.
To focus all of her power on Cal?
Marek met Keras’s gaze across the shimmering gate. “We need those two away from here right now or it’s over.”
Keras’s gaze zipped to Cal and then the wraith and illusionist.
Marek kicked off, intending to join him when he teleported to reach them.
Only it wasn’t his brother who appeared behind the two daemons.
Caterina was suddenly there.
She grabbed both of them and his heart lunged into his throat and slammed to a halt. No. Not her. It was suicide. The daemons would kill her for interfering with their plans when they had been on the cusp of a victory.
“Caterina!”
She looked across at him.
Gave him a sorrowful smile that told him she was well aware of what was going to happen to her.
And disappeared.
Chapter 30
Calistos had never heard anything as terrifying as the mournful, vicious sound that ripped from Marek as he sprinted through the flat glowing disc of the gate and skidded to a halt where Caterina had been.
And was now gone.
The ground shook and bucked beneath Cal’s boots, sending Eva to her knees and Valen cursing as he went down with her when he attempted to help her. Marek tore through the daemons they had been fighting with Daimon, the scent of spilled black blood flooding the air as it ran in a river across the dry ground, soaking into the cracks that formed as the tremors continued. The olive trees around the grove swayed, and rocks tumbled down the hillsides.
Cal kicked off as his senses blared a warning, narrowly avoiding being hit by one of the boulders. A daemon beyond him wasn’t so lucky. The rock crushed him beneath its weight, and knocked several more flying before it hit the hill on the other side and rolled back, slowing to a halt before it could cause any more mayhem.
“Anyone care to get him under control?” Cal kept his focus on the gate as he held his palms out facing it, focusing on it to assess the damage.
The moment Keras’s shadows had torn through it, pain had ripped through Calistos, stealing his breath and leaving him feeling as if he was the one that had been damaged by his brother’s attack.
He wasn’t sure he had the strength to do what was necessary, not after the fight against the daemons, but he was going to give it everything he had.
If he could concentrate.
He leaped aside again as a huge fissure formed in the ground, the side he landed on in a low crouch dropping as the other one rose to tower over him.
“Fucking hell,” Valen growled. “Dial it back.”
His brother appeared on the other side of Cal with Eva tucked against him, his glare levelled on Marek as he ripped apart a daemon and tossed the body into the crevasse.
“Marek,” Keras snapped, his deep voice a commanding snarl that had Marek finally stopping his assault.
Cal glanced at his blood-soaked brother.
Or maybe he had stopped because all the daemons were dead now.
Marek leaned over, braced his hands against his knees and breathed hard, his back straining as he fought for air, his eyes as black as night.
“Can you think of anywhere she might have taken them, or they would have taken her?” Keras moved to stand beside Cal, his voice level and calm.
It had the desired effect on Marek, pulling him back from the darkness.
Marek grumbled, “I can think of a few places.”
“Take Daimon. I don’t want you going alone.” Keras didn’t take his eyes off the gate as Marek grabbed Daimon and stepped. “Godsdammit.”
The fact his brother had cursed made the gravity of the situation hit home.
If Cal couldn’t seal the gate, there was a danger the mortal world and the Underworld would bleed together through it, and that would be the beginning of the end.
After Keras had revealed they were the Keys of Hades, bound to the gates through blood, they’d had several meetings to discuss what that might mean, and what they might have to do to seal a gate if it came down to that.
In the end, the only solid guess they agreed on was spilling their blood on the gate. Blood bound them to the gate, so maybe blood could control it.
None of them knew what to expect if they managed to forge a connection with a gate though, or how they were supposed to close it. Something told him it was going to be painful, and it wasn’t going to be easy.
He let his gaze lose focus as he looked at the gate, summoned that feeling that brewed inside him whenever he was seeing the otherworld.
The sky turned blood red, streaked with flaming boulders that rained down on the land, tearing up huge tracts of the black earth as they impacted. Trees blazed around him. Smoke filled the air, together with the distant sound of screams. Some human. Some other things.
The acrid stench of burning flesh filled his nostrils and ahead of him, an enormous red tower speared the sky, flanked by smaller black ones. At their wide jagged bases, shadows swirled, a legion of daemons illuminated by pyres on which mortals burned.
Cal squeezed his eyes shut, not needing to see any more.
His glimpse of the otherworld, the future of this one should the enemy succeed, did its job.
Strength surged through him, determination to do his duty and not fail in his mission driving it higher as he opened his eyes and focused on the shattered, colourful horizontal disc of the gate that hovered a few feet above the earth before him.
He could do this.
He pulled one of his knives from the sheath on his hip, took a deep breath and drew the blade across his left palm. He curled his
fingers over into a fist as he sheathed the blade, ignoring the sting of the cut as he squeezed it, because he was sure he was about to experience far worse pain, and strode towards the gate.
When he reached it, he turned his hand on its side and sucked down another breath as he waited. A bead of blood pooled on the side of his hand and he swallowed and braced himself as it trembled and fell.
It hit the gate.
Cal held his breath.
Either this would work or it wouldn’t and they would be in even deeper shit, trying to come up with something on the fly.
Colours shimmered across the disc, chased by a wave of red that rapidly spread to cover every ring and glyph of the gate.
Was it working?
Pain cut through him, a white-hot bolt of lightning that tore a grunt from his lips as he gritted his teeth and bore it.
He knew the great rip through the middle of the gate hurt.
He could feel everything about the gate as a strange connection formed between them. It danced across his skin at first, a wave of prickles that made him aware of the power of the gate, how that line of shattered glyphs was painful, and left him feeling as if it was a living thing.
Maybe it was.
They were forged from blood after all.
Cal wasn’t sure it would be a good thing if the gate was more than just a portal, if the blood had given it a strange sort of life. He had always wondered if they were sentient, from the day he had seen one react to a daemon, shimmering black where the daemon had passed through it and sparking violently, as if it despised the creatures as much as he and his brothers did.
If the gate was sentient in a way, it might not like what he intended to do to it.
He got his answer when he focused on the thought of closing it, on the fresh blood he had spilled on it that now coated the surface, dimming the light of it further with each drop he fed to it.
The prickling became a thousand white-hot needles that sank deep into his bones.
The pain that washed through him was so intense, he bent forwards and vomited.
Marek: Guardians of Hades Series Book 4 Page 31