Drop Dead Demons

by Kirk, A

  Run! Now! So much jumbled in my brain, desperate for release. Lines of information, sayings, titles, names, locations, they kept popping up faster than I could piece them together. Run! It felt like spiders crawling under my skin. I scratched my palm.

  “Babe, you alright?”

  “Sure. Fine.” I breathed deep. Fisted my hands. This was awesome. For once I knew more than they did. I could finally get a handle on all my Divinicus Nex crap. I had knowledge, and access to more. But first I had to…to…what? Sort through what I already had. Organize the information ricocheting around inside my head.

  “Not a fugitive.” I tucked my hair behind my ears, concentrating. “Elizabeth was with the Divinicus for years as his biographer.”

  Jayden nodded. “Every Divinicus has one, but why did she come here and create this?”

  I filled my cheeks with air then blew it out, shaking my hands to relieve the tingling. “The Bellator set this up with Nathan Flint because the Mandatum was going to kill the Divinicus’s kid.”

  “What!” Jayden shrieked.

  “The Bellator,” Blake said patiently. “That’s the hot girl hunter who has the special supernatural connection with the Divinicus. They share an emotional and physical bond, and she becomes his lifetime protector and companion. Really dude, try to keep up.”

  Jayden’s hands clenched into tight fists, which he shook at Blake. “Of course I know what a Bellator is!”

  “Then quit asking stupid questions.”

  “But Aurora is talking nonsense!” Jayden almost screamed. “The child of the Divinicus and Bellator is sacred.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Which makes a child created from Elizabeth’s affair with the Divinicus blasphemous.”

  Jayden’s head trembled from side to side like he was short circuiting. “Elizabeth couldn’t be pregnant with the Divinicus’s baby because the Divinicus is only ever sexually intimate with the Bellator.”

  I rubbed my eyes. So itchy. “Which is why Elizabeth was a dead woman walking. Broke all the rules when she fell in love with the Divinicus. Even though the Bellator was heartbroken, she couldn’t let them kill the baby.” I rapped my knuckles on Blake’s shoulder. “Help me get more books down.”

  “Maybe you should grab Ayden.” Logan gave the big guy a push.

  “Yeah.” Blake shot me a strange look before jogging out.

  “But I need— Ugh.” I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans. Images suddenly flashed in my head, showing me where I’d get the answers to my questions. “Column forty, row five, volume seventeen twelve.” I tittered a laugh. “Oh, that’s so much better than tracking a demon.”

  “Aurora!” Jayden slapped a hand over my mouth. “We agreed you’d kept your abilities a secret.”

  I pushed him off. “Secret, schmeetrit. Don’t you see? That’s why the spirals react to my touch. This place was made for the Divinicus.” Grabbing his shirt, I yanked our faces close. “This place was made for me!” I laughed. “Isn’t that great?”

  “Perhaps you should sit,” Jayden said.

  “No way. It’s awesome! This is my sanctuary now. The last Bellator didn’t want to kill a pregnant woman or her soul mate’s child, so she had a place made to hide and protect all of them. Not just her Divinicus, but every one after him. So I could be free. Wow. Bellators fix everything. Where’s mine? I’m thirsty.” I ran over to the sink, turned on the faucet, shoved my mouth into the stream of water, and guzzled. Then I stuck my head under the flow. “Ah, feels better. Weird that an underground cave is so hot.” I pulled my head out and shook it to fling off the excess water. “Look, I’m a dog!”

  Ayden came running in. He looked good. Really good.

  Color in his cheeks. Hair gelled and mussed to perfection. Jeans fit just right and that awesome leather jacket with the scars and imperfections from his being a big, bad, sexy demon hunter. Not to mention that knowing smile flip-flopping my stomach.

  Although, he wasn’t wearing it now.

  Frowning, he glanced at his brother. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Nothing.” I ran over and snaked an arm around his neck. “Especially now that you’re here, sugar lips.”

  My fingers slid into his hair, pulling his mouth against mine. He tasted yummy. Minty. And all mine. But he pulled away.

  I planted a bunch of kisses on his face and neck. “Helloooo, gorgeous.”

  Blake said, “She must think you’re me.”

  Ayden pulled my head back and lifted my lids with his thumbs. “Her eyes are red. Did she take something?”

  “I gave her water.” Logan smacked Jayden. “You said it was fine.”

  “It’s not the water,” Jayden said.

  “Maybe it was when babe got hit with the book?”

  “Who hit her with a book?” Ayden sounded like he was ready to hit someone. I kept kissing him.

  Logan whacked Blake then told Ayden, “No one. Blake meant the information from the book somehow hit into her brain. All the sudden she just knew stuff.”

  “Then babe started acting like she was on some high-octane caffeine, sugar-rush combo with an adrenaline chaser.”

  Ayden listened with growing anxiety as the boys’ related events, which was boring, so I pushed away and skipped down the aisle.

  “Aurora!”

  I raced ahead of Ayden and climbed a bookcase, swinging off it one-handed. “Look, I’m a monkey!”

  “Come down!”

  “But I haven’t figured out what went wrong yet.” I grabbed back onto the shelves. “The Bellator smuggled a pregnant Elizabeth — let’s call her Lizzy, makes her sound spunky — to her brother, Nathan, in Gossamer Falls and later, the Bellator and Divinicus also planned to escape here. To this place.” I swung off a shelf again to gesture toward the room.

  Below, Ayden growled, “Aurora, quit doing that!”

  “Spoiled sport.” I latched back on. “Nathan built this as a hideout. Eventually, he would’ve gotten them all new names, new documents, new lives. But…”

  “Did they get discovered?” Blake asked.

  “Don’t encourage her,” Ayden said as he and Logan climbed up after me.

  “I don’t know.” My foot slipped. Chin cracked against stone, but I caught myself from falling. Tasted copper. Blood. Had bit my tongue. Didn’t hurt. I kept climbing. “She writes about it. Must be here.” I scuttled across the shelf and then up, up, up!

  Jayden pointed to the walls. “I thought you indicted that her diaries were in those drawers over there.”

  My head jerked around. “Oh, right!” I jumped down.

  “Jayden!” Ayden was annoyed.

  “Sorry. But this allegory is fascinating.”

  Blake steered me away from the wall. “Got her.”

  “No!” I struggled against the big guy, looking over my shoulder at the masses of information just waiting for me to absorb. “There’s still so much I don’t know.”

  “Come on, babe.” Blake pulled me along. “Tell us what happened next to Nathan and Elizabeth.”

  “Lizzy,” I corrected. I scratched the back of my hand. Then my scalp. Lots of itches. “Nathan hid her child, but the Mandatum captured and tortured Nathan to insanity before he told Lizzy where he hid the baby so Lizzy hid here until…” I glanced over Blake’s shoulder at the corpse. “She looks sad.”

  “Probably because she’s dead,” Blake said.

  When Blake turned to glance back too, I slipped out of his arms.

  “Babe!”

  Ayden scowled. “Blake.”

  “She tricked me.”

  “So alone and scared. “ I zoomed past the skeleton, grabbed a midnight blue gown, and held it against me in front of the mirror. “Nathan captured. Her child missing. She searched for years, using the sanctuary as her base.” I grabbed a hat dripping with feathers and veils, and plopped it on my head. “Hiding out in the tunnels, selling off pieces of the treasure when she needed money. But no baby. Eventually, she couldn’t travel and…she died. And tha
t’s all I know until read, read, read!” I twirled and nearly fell.

  Ayden caught me. “Not happening.”

  I stamped my foot. “But I have to.”

  A sudden, sharp pain blossomed in the back of my head. I rubbed it, trying to relieve the building pressure, a vise tightening around my skull. Didn’t help. Got worse. Pinpoints of light edged my vision. My knees gave out.

  A gaggle of noise made things worse. The guys were talking. Getting louder. Arguing. Every word an icepick chipping away at my skill.

  “And there’s no way to get her out!” Ayden shouted. “You were supposed to be looking for an exit!”

  “There’s one in the back.” I pointed toward the mini-apartment. “Another elevator.”

  “We don’t even know where it leads,” Jayden protested.

  “Has…several exits.” I hissed air through clenched teeth, sorted through the blistering inferno of information. “Closest one…tunnel…near the falls.”

  “Babe knows what she’s talking about.”

  “It’s old!” Jayden sputtered. “The mechanics could break down. We’d be trapped.”

  Inside my head was a minefield. Every new sound setting off a fresh explosion, sucking all energy. My eyes squeezed shut. Something tickled my nose. I rubbed it away and my fingers came back with blood. Not the best sign. But better than leaking brain matter.

  “I don’t care.” Ayden was losing patience. “Get the guys. We’re leaving.”

  “Please stop.” My gut twisted. I wrenched away to fall on my knees and throw up.

  At least I didn’t pass out. Although that might be preferable to what felt like an axe-wielding psycho running around in my head shredding soft brain tissue. Or Ayden slapping my cheeks as he held my face. His expression vacillated between fear and fury.

  “Her eyes are crazy red.”

  My heart accelerated. “Changing color? I’m transforming?” I pinched my face. “Into what?”

  “No,” Ayden said soothingly, brushing aside my hand and caressing my cheek. “I meant they’re bloodshot. Relax. Take this.” Ayden pushed something through my lips. A mint. Then he lifted me in his arms and kissed my forehead. “We’re getting you out of here.”

  I started to rest my head on his chest, but his shirt was wet. And he winced with every step.

  “What’s wrong?” My mouth ran dry. Suddenly my pain didn’t matter. “Oh, God.”

  “It’s nothing,” he murmured.

  No, it was something. Soaking through his T-shirt.

  Blood. And lots of it.

  “You’re hurt.” I squirmed. “Ayden, stop! Put me down.”

  He dropped on one knee. Then, quite unceremoniously, he dropped me. But I couldn’t complain. He couldn’t hear me if I did.

  He’d collapsed onto the floor.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  “Ayden!” My hands hovered, afraid to touch him.

  Blake rushed over and with one yank, ripped Ayden’s bloody shirt up the middle.

  My breath sucked in.

  His chest was peppered with red welts, some black in the center, not so much bleeding as oozing. Jagged purple lines ran in between the welts, like some macabre version of connect-the-dots.

  Jayden skidded to his knees, then gingerly inspected the injuries.

  “This can’t be.” His lips thinned. “It looks like he’s…burned.”

  “When the lava came out of the portal it splattered,” I said. “Maybe it hit him.”

  “Even lava doesn’t bother him. Nothing with heat does.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe it’s special lava because it’s from the Waiting World because he was fine when we were melting the chains after he stopped my fingers from zapping—” A cold realization stabbed through my chest. I flopped on my butt. “Oh, crap. It was me. I-I-I did this.” I scooted away.

  “Babe, calm down.”

  I pointed at Ayden, my hands shaking like I held a jackhammer. “When he knocked me aside to cut the connection, the explody stuff was zapping from my fingers and must have hit him in the chest. But I never thought…he didn’t say…I’m so sorry.” I crawled back over and smoothed the hair from his forehead. “Ayden. Wake up. Please.”

  He was hot, starting to sweat, shivering. And even if I didn’t see the look in Jayden’s eyes, it was clear we didn’t have much time.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  We rushed down the tunnel leading from Lizzy’s room and found the latticed metal elevator where, like a size-ten foot in a size-five sneaker, we squeezed in. Logan climbed up and hung from the side, moving his hands in odd motions. Blake was cradling Ayden like his wounded friend was made of fragile, paper-thin glass, and without a word spoken, the rest of us gave him as much room as we could.

  Face smooshed against the metal, I punched buttons on the control panel before Sally Security had even finished asking me to, “Enter destination request.”

  When I felt the weight of questioning looks as to how I knew the proper code, I avoided eye contact because, hey, I had no friggin’ clue. I was running on knowledge that came from a place I couldn’t explain. If I was wrong, we’d find out soon enough.

  And they could kill me then.

  With a clang, jolt, and belch of oil, metal, and something acrid — probably terror — we started a crickity-rickety journey up, riding in silence thick as C-4 and just as volatile.

  I was an emotional schizoid.

  Sometimes I felt empty. Gutted, hollow, and numb. Then I’d look at Ayden, vacillating in and out of consciousness, and a zillion icicles, honed to razor sharp points, stabbed mercilessly through my body, leaving me cold and writhing in nerve-shattering pain. Then I’d wipe sweat from my forehead with shaky hands and realize I was still hyped-up from whatever the sanctuary did to me. Or I could be flooded with guilt — and shock — over putting Ayden at death’s door.

  Burning the Hex Boy who was unburnable.

  No one was saying it, but they had to hate me at that moment. Know I did. And I got the niggling feeling that they might even be a bit scared of me.

  Hey, I scared myself.

  Could be why my breathing became halted. Then energy rippled through my insides, splashing with violent fury like a stormy sea on jagged cliffs. My hands prickled, and when I looked down, they started to glow. I quickly stuffed them in my pockets.

  A wind swirled around the cramped space and Logan blurted, “My powers are back,” just as the elevator jerked to a stop, the door opening to let us stumble out into a tunnel.

  “Finally!” Jayden flung a few ice blades then hustled to Blake and checked Ayden’s injuries.

  With the sound of gears turning, the elevator simply disappeared, covered over by weathered stone, smooth but for a small, inconspicuous carving of a double spiral.

  In the distance, we could hear the thundering water from the falls, and using the hologram tunnel map on their phones, Logan and Matthias led us out. I jogged on the other side of Blake, hands hidden, afraid to touch Ayden, as I watched Jayden work. Eyes a murky blue-green, he hovered his hands over Ayden’s chest wounds.

  “Jayden,” I swallowed hard. “I’m so sorry. What can I do? I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

  “The burns appear superficial.” Jayden’s words were clipped, cold, sterile. He frowned. “Other than he shouldn’t be burned, they’re normal and not life-threatening. Certainly wouldn’t cause him to react like this.” As one hand ran over Ayden’s shoulder, Jayden jerked as if bitten. “Oh, no.”

  My stomach lurched. “What?”

  “Shh!” Jayden placed a palm on Ayden’s neck then, with an increasingly grim expression, he moved it gently along Ayden’s collarbone and over the wounded shoulder. “It’s not the burns.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “It’s the toxin.”

  My brows knitted. “What toxin?”

  “In his blood!” Jayden blurted then seemed surprised by his outburst and reeled his composure back in. “I can read the plasma composition. It’s tainted. Point of origin is the spear
puncture.”

  I rasped, “The blade was poisoned?” Jayden nodded gravely, and I nearly collapsed. It wasn’t me. But my tiny sense of relief lasted only an instant. “You can fix him, right? With your watery powers. Just suck it out!”

  “It’s not that easy.” Jayden’s nostrils flared while his hands worked on the wound, eyes swirling brighter as a pale vapor lifted off Ayden. “I am extracting as much as I can, but a fatal dose has already infiltrated his blood stream.” He flinched when Ayden’s body spasmed. The vapor cloud dissipated. “That’s as much as I dare. Now the best I can do is slow his blood flow to diminish the toxin’s acceleration through his system.”

  At the word “fatal,” my mind nearly shut down. I blinked back tears. “That will buy us time to save him?”

  Jayden nodded. “The faster we get him to the lab at the house, the better. Blake move!”

  We hit turbo-boost and soon raced into the cave illuminated by the glow-in-the-dark algae which put us in sight of the backside of the waterfall. The roar was deafening. Mist rose from the pounding waters and took on the eerie green glow.

  Jayden burst into a dead run.

  I stumbled when the vision hit. It was quick. Tristan pulled me upright. I recovered and ran forward, yelling, “Jayden stop!” but it was too late.

  He parted the waters of the falls and walked right into an ambush.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  I sprinted after Jayden anyway, screaming things like “Stop!” and “Ambush!” but the crashing din of the waterfall drowned any warnings. Logan caught my arm and shoved me back into Tristan who, despite my struggles, kept me in place as the white-haired wonder drew his bow and fired.

  The arrow missiled for Jayden’s back, aimed to sever his spine in two.

  What the heck?!

  Clueless to the danger, Jayden barreled toward the opening of parted water. From Matthias’s hands, shadow whips snapped out. They licked through the air and wrapped around Jayden’s waist then he was yanked off his feet and hauled backwards into the cave.