by Reine, SM
James’s eyes traced the charms, and the line of worry in his brow deepened. “Do you need my help tonight?” Please let me help you.
“I already have enough backup.” She glanced at her cell phone. “I’m about to meet Nukha’il and Anthony, so you’ve got my attention for about twenty seconds. What do you want? Really.”
James’s hand stroked down her braid, and one of the curls at the bottom briefly wrapped around his finger before bouncing free. “I want you to stop avoiding me, for one thing.”
“That’s why you came down? Really?”
A thousand thoughts flicked across his features and vanished again. Blissfully, Elise couldn’t hear a single one of them.
“Sorry to have bothered you. I’ll leave.”
They stepped into the hall together, and Elise hesitated before going into the club. “James? When you get home… check all your wards. Make sure you’re protected.”
His smile was sad. “I will.”
“Where’s James?” Anthony shouted when Elise finally joined him at the elevator behind the DJ booth. Her lips were thin, the tendons in her neck were rigid, and a vein bulged on her forehead. The stress radiating from her skin was palpable.
She said nothing.
Nukha’il opened the gate for the elevator, and they all piled in. It creaked to life as soon as he shut the door.
Anthony tilted back his face to watch the shaft stretching overhead. The music echoing from the club faded rapidly. The bass died first, and then the treble, until all he could hear was the occasional faint hiss of snare.
Then that, too, was gone, and all he heard was the occasional creak of the elevator’s chain.
It was discomfortingly similar to Anthony’s descent into the cave-in. Had the path to the Warrens always been so dark?
“What’s the plan?” he asked Elise, trying to distract himself from the claustrophobic walls of the elevator cage.
She cracked her knuckles. “We find out who’s gotten into the gate.”
“And?”
“And we make sure that they don’t come out again.”
“You mean, we’re going to kill them.” Anthony choked on the sentence. “But Nukha’il left alive. Doesn’t that mean that this man is harmless?”
Elise remained silent, but he could feel her judging him. Her stare all but screamed, You stupid boy. Of course someone who had navigated the Warrens to reach the gate wouldn’t be harmless, and they certainly wouldn’t be innocent. And of course she wouldn’t think twice about killing them. She wasn’t Anthony.
He shut his mouth and didn’t bother trying to talk again.
They descended in silence for a few more seconds. He tapped his toes, trying to focus on the bars of the elevator instead of what was waiting for them below.
The light dimmed and buzzed. Elise shot a look at Nukha’il. He had woven his own feathers through his hair, and they shimmered with internal light.
“It’s not me,” he said.
Anthony spun slowly, gazing at the rising walls beyond the cage of the elevator. Or at least, he tried to see the walls—it was suddenly dark beyond the bars, very dark, and he couldn’t see the smoothly hewn stone at all.
The bulb popped. Sparks rained down on them, washing over Elise’s hair with a shock of yellow.
And then there was no light at all.
Anthony reached out, searching for his girlfriend’s hand, and found her elbow. She shook him off. Metal rasped on leather as she drew her sword. “I thought you said the shadow hadn’t reached the gate,” Elise said.
“It hadn’t.” Nukha’il sounded worried, and that only made Anthony more worried.
The elevator grated to a stop, and Anthony held his breath. Had they reached the bottom level, or had the motor failed?
“Flashlights,” she said.
He fumbled in his pockets and almost dropped it. His fingers searched over the smooth plastic case for the button. His thumb met rubber. He pressed it.
Blue light spilled into the elevator, and that tightness in his chest eased a fraction—just a fraction. Anthony shone his flashlight upon the faces of his companions. Nukha’il’s eyes reflected silvery white. Elise’s jaw and shoulders were tight, and all the color was sucked out of her shirt and hair, making her look ghost-like.
She shoved the door open. The elevator had jammed a few feet short of the bottom, and they had to jump to reach the ground. The metal rattled and squealed when Anthony dropped.
He had been in the upper level of the Warrens so often that it had become a familiar sight. The long, narrow shaft extended in either direction, suspended by ancient boards that creaked with the weight of the rock. It was silent aside from the occasional whir of the ventilation system that cooled the air and pumped out water.
If he went left, he knew he would eventually find himself in a structure like a honeycomb, which housed some of the territory’s uglier demons; if he went right, it would go down, down, down into the depths of what used to be the Night Hag’s domain.
Beyond that, deeper in the earth, awaited the gate. He had been having nightmares about it for months.
Elise headed right.
“Stay close.”
He followed her, letting the angel take the rear. Even without his wings exposed, Nukha’il was disturbingly inhuman. He had to stoop to walk through the mines, and he held himself as though he were dragging those massive, eight-foot wings behind him.
But Anthony had bigger worries. It was dark down there—so dark. Hadn’t the Night Hag installed lights? Where was the power?
They passed a fork that he had never explored before. A wind breezed out of the tunnel.
Anthony…
He stopped. Nukha’il almost ran into him, but the angel stepped back with a rustle of feathers, like a bird offended by the gust of a storm.
“Did you hear that?” Anthony asked.
Elise’s jaw was tense. “Keep moving.”
“But someone said my name.”
She grabbed his arm and pulled him around to face her. “Don’t listen. Keep moving.”
That measured tone meant she was keeping her emotions tightly controlled. It was usually comforting. Elise could keep a cool head against anything. When things got bad, he and Betty used to joke, “What would Elise do?” and they usually agreed that the answer was, “Kick ass and yawn about it later.”
But Betty wasn’t there anymore. She had died in front of that gate.
Another breeze sighed around his feet.
Anthony…
“What’s down here?” he asked.
Elise shoved him. Anthony stumbled but kept his footing. “Whatever you hear—whatever you see—keep moving. Guns aren’t going to work on anything we meet.”
“Then why did I bring the shotgun?”
“Security blanket?” Nukha’il suggested, bumping shoulders with Anthony as they strode down the corridor.
Anthony sped his pace to get in front of him. He glared at Nukha’il, and the angel stared back, calm and unsmiling.
Elise took them to another fork and turned. A few steps later, they turned again. The walls became paneled with wood on one side. A couple of them were cracked. Anthony remembered glimpsing demonic settlements on the other side—some built into narrow crannies, some built into caves.
But now, even though he shone his flashlight on them, all he saw was darkness waiting on the other side.
“We’re almost there,” Elise said, drawing her sword.
Anthony…
A chill rolled over him, like something heavy and wet slithering down his spine. He swatted at his neck and spun, searching for the source of the sensation.
Heavy shadow yawned at his back.
The corridor behind them had disappeared.
“Elise,” he began.
His flashlight dimmed. Elise’s flickered.
And then all light was gone.
He couldn’t move his feet. Cold fingers brushed his face, his scalp, his arms. An icy kiss of da
rkness caressed the hollow of his collarbone, and he tried to brush it away.
“Stay close,” Elise said, but her voice was distant, echoing.
Oh God, she was leaving. “Hey, wait! I can’t see anything! Elise? Nukha’il?”
He reached his hands out, searching for walls. Shouldn’t they have been right there? It was such a narrow passage. But he found nothing.
He popped the strap on his scabbard and drew his shotgun. The metal was warm, so much warmer than the tunnels, as if it had been fired recently. He hugged it to his chest.
Elise’s words swirled somewhere far away. “Keep moving…”
“Wait for me!” Anthony shouted.
He hurried to keep up with her, following the occasional scuff of footstep on stone.
Anthony…
His flashlight flickered to life again.
He stood alone in the center of three divergent tunnels.
Elise and the angel were nowhere in sight.
Each of the passages was the same—wooden posts suspending sagging stone. And they all seemed to go down, down, down. But hadn’t he gone down to get there? Shouldn’t one of them have led up, back to oxygen and daylight and safety?
He held his breath, listening for a hint of motion that would tell him where Elise had gone, but he heard nothing beyond his racing heart. The sound of the ventilation was gone, too.
White flashed in the corner of his eye. He whirled, raising the shotgun to aim it down one of the tunnels.
His heart thundered in his chest.
“Is someone there?” Anthony called.
And then, in response, a tiny voice: “Help me.”
It sounded like a child. His shotgun wavered.
He took a step down the tunnel. “Hello?”
“Please… someone help me.”
He hesitated, remembering what Elise had told him. Whatever you hear—whatever you see—just keep moving.
Another flash of white.
Bare feet pattered on the stone.
Common sense told him that there was no way a child could be in the Warrens. But hadn’t Elise found a demon lost beneath that drugstore? Wasn’t there a chance that someone was lost and scared in the shadows of the mines—someone other than Anthony?
“It’s okay,” he said, sliding down the tunnel with his back to the wall. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
He glanced over his shoulder. Darkness swallowed the junction and urged him forward. That voice was gone, and so was the breeze. It was just Anthony, his shotgun, dead air, and the voice of a little girl.
A few more steps, and a hazy white shape emerged at the end of the tunnel, which terminated in more wooden panels. Something small and pale was curled in the corner.
Anthony recognized the curve of a bare shoulder, stubby toes, and locks of long, golden hair.
It really was a child. Her knees were drawn to her chest, and her face was buried in her arms. Judging by her size, she couldn’t have been older than four or five. She looked terrified. And who could blame her? Some guy was approaching her with a gun.
“Hey.” He sheathed his firearm. “It’s okay.”
She lifted her head enough to peek over her arm.
Alarm bells rang out in his head. Her eyes are black. Completely black. That can’t be right.
But she spoke before he could move away. “Who are you?” Her voice was musical and light. He almost didn’t notice the undertone of a throatier, more womanly voice beneath it.
Anthony…
His flashlight dimmed again, but all Anthony wanted to do was pick up the girl, carry her from the Warrens, and take her somewhere safe. She was so helpless. So fragile.
He stretched out his hands as he lowered himself to a crouch.
“My name’s Anthony. Anthony Morales. It’s okay—I’m one of the good guys.”
As he approached, she buried her face in her arms again. Her blond hair fell over her forehead. “I’m scared,” she whispered.
I’m so lonely. Hold me.
“I’ll get you out of here,” he said, sounding braver than he felt. She drew into a tighter ball when he kneeled at her side.
“You can help me?”
He reached out to touch her shoulder. “Yeah. Of course. I won’t leave you.”
She lifted her head again. Her face was round, with a pointed chin and plump red lips. More of a woman’s face than a child’s. Tears shone on her cheeks, dripping off her jaw onto a bony clavicle. Her skin was luminous, like moonlight contained in human form. Beautiful. Truly beautiful.
“Thank you for saving me, Anthony,” she said.
Her lips didn’t move when she spoke.
Her mouth yawned open, sudden and wide and filling his vision. He shouted and threw himself back, landing hard on his butt. The shock of it jolted up his spine.
Anthony flung an arm up to shield his face. The back of his head bounced against the wall.
The darkness was complete.
VI
Elise wasn’t surprised when the flashlights died again. She was more surprised that it had taken so long.
She slammed her flashlight against her hip, but the bulb didn’t even flicker. She forced herself to speak calmly. “Don’t worry, guys. We don’t need the lights anyway. Nukha’il?”
The angel’s eyes lit first, shining like daylight through blue plates of a stained glass window. A second glow followed quickly at his back. It wasn’t his wings—there wasn’t enough room to deploy them—but it came from the space where they should have been. The ethereal light penetrated the darkness, flooding a few feet around them in the hall.
Anthony was not there.
Elise swore, kicking a loose rock into the wall. It gave a satisfying, but muffled, crack.
“Goddamn it, Anthony—I told him to stay close!”
“He’s most likely been taken.”
Cold reality splashed over her anger to dampen it. “No. He’s fine. He’s probably just a couple of halls away. Go find him.”
His wings drooped. “And leave you alone, with no light?” Nukha’il looked so pathetic that an ounce of something resembling sympathy bloomed within her.
“I’ll be fine.”
His glimmering gaze was locked upon her. “If you want me to search the darkness for him, I will search. I only want to see you happy.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“I have no choice. When I’m near you, all I think about is having your smile radiate on me.”
She took a step back, but he responded with a step forward. Nukha’il took her hand.
“Don’t,” she warned.
He dipped his head, and before she could react, he kissed her knuckles. It was the barest touch, but it jolted into shoulders, elbows, and palms.
The pain was instant and all consuming. She stiffened. Tried to breathe. But all she could smell was sunrise, sunset, the moon in the sky, the heavy moisture of clouds—angel smells. It only intensified the pain. Her vertebrae locked together as if gripped by silver spikes.
Elise pushed him back. Touching him made her hands burn, but it took a moment for her brain to register the additional sensation, like briefly resting her hands on a hot stove.
“Jesus,” she bit out, shutting her eyes against the shudders rippling through her. She didn’t have to remove her gloves to know that the marks would be bleeding. Again. It rippled through her in waves, contracting her back muscles and making her head swim. But each ripple was smaller than the last, and after a few seconds, the pain faded.
When she opened her eyes again, there was a helpless, searching look on Nukha’il’s face. “You never smile for me,” he whispered.
Revulsion swirled in her gut. “Don’t you ever do that again.”
“I know, I know. It is damnation—sweet damnation.” Nukha’il gave a shuddering sigh. “I love Itra’il so much. So very, very much. But it’s nothing like what I feel for you, Elise. You are a forest fire, and I am the dry grass. I adore you. I want—”
&nb
sp; “I don’t care what you want,” she interrupted.
His brow knitted. “I want to be rid of you. I’ve watched civilizations rise and fall, but I’m helpless against you because you’ve been marked by Him. I’m only sane when you aren’t around.” Nukha’il’s pale eyes burned with barely-contained fire. “I think I hate you, Elise, in as many ways as I love you.”
She said nothing. She hadn’t asked for it—any of it. She hadn’t even wanted the angel to come back to the city.
Nukha’il took a deep breath. His face blanked, and he was calm once more.
“You’ve made a request, and I’ll honor it. Your whims are my directives.”
He strode away, followed by the dim ghost of wings. He took all the light with him.
She worked her mouth around, gathering what little saliva was on her tongue, and spit it onto the asphalt. It was stained with blood.
Elise hated to be adored.
Even though her skin still buzzed, she didn’t hesitate—she jogged down the mineshaft the instant Nukha’il was gone. She didn’t have far to go. Elise’s movements began echoing differently, and she realized she was at the end of the tunnel.
She held out her hands and moved slowly until she found the door. She ran her hands over the wood and found the metal bar that served as a handle. Even in the darkness, she could make out the faint shape of magic glimmering over it; she had used one of Craven’s resident witches, Treeny, to cast a weak locking charm on the entrance. Theoretically, only she and Nukha’il should have been able to get inside.
She pressed her hand against the metal bar. The door slid open.
White light flooded the hall.
It was like falling into the sun. Elise flung up her sword to shield her stinging eyes. Tears blurred her vision.
“Who’s there?” she shouted into the light.
The responding voice was cool and masculine. “Come in and close the door.”
Elise headed down the ramp encircling the room with the gate, following her memories rather than her vision.
She began to make out shapes in the room—first, the high, arching stone of the gate. It wasn’t the source of the light. It was no more than a shadow. But she could see the marks rimming the base, even through the specter of too-bright light in her eyes. It hummed when she approached, as if greeting her.