By my third step, I wished I’d worn shoes to bed. Sharp rocks dug into the soles of my feet and I was pretty sure I hit every one on my way up. Murky, gray light filtered in near the top. I hadn’t really expected the second gate at the top to be open, but it was. Trying to see out of it before moving it had my heart pounding so hard it hurt. I reached for my knives, then realized I hadn’t worn them to bed either. Sometimes I’m just not that bright.
Sighing, I swallowed back the terror weighing down my legs and slowly pushed the door open. My relief over the empty hallway had me leaning against a stone wall. It looked like we were in a castle dungeon, complete with jagged rock walls and another set of wider stairs at the end of the long hall. Four other black gates were set into the walls. I walked to the first, but it was locked, as were the second and third. The fourth was slightly open. I peered down the stairs. Like Nikolos’s cell, this one had two gates—one on either end of a narrow staircase.
I’m not sure I could describe the level of terror I felt in that moment. Do I risk this long black stairwell or do I turn and go back to the snarling, almost nonhuman love of my life and try to get through to him again? I still didn’t know the time constraints of this place.
But I could grab the ankhs when I was ready to leave.
I had to see what was down there.
The loud screech of the metal gate made me wince, so I only pushed it open enough to squeeze through. I bit back a scream when my bare foot landed on another sharp rock. This time, I felt the warm wetness of blood on my next step. Great. Phro had freaked about me bleeding here before. This time I would leave blood in footprints.
When I got to the bottom, I realized the gate here was locked and as I looked through the metal slats, I didn’t know why. The giant stretched wall-to-wall against the opposite side of the dungeon was so obviously dead I gagged and covered my mouth. He’d been beaten so badly, the arm I could see was bent at the wrong angle. His hand, palm up, was three times the size of my head. Dried blood caked his entire body and had turned his tunic the color of old mud. One blind white eye faced me. The other had been plucked from his head.
I turned away and hurried back up the stairs, not caring about the wound on my foot. When I got to the top, I heard someone coming down the hall. I plastered my back to the stone wall, hoping whoever it was wouldn’t see me, but desperate to see the kind of creature I’d be up against. Whoever it was stopped, just out of sight, and I waited, holding my own breath because the sound of its own was spine-scrapingly loud.
Deep, but strangely feminine laughter sounded.
I remembered what Nikolos had said about being spotted, and even though it felt like I was ripping my own heart out, I clenched my hands around the ankhs and let myself go home.
Chapter Eleven
I blinked into the room to find everyone standing around gaping at the motel bed.
“You just appeared,” Castor said.
I struggled to sit up and not show them how much it hurt. My throat felt scraped raw, my stomach ached where he’d kicked me. But everything, every single ache and burn, was overshadowed by my desperate need to get Nikolos out of that hell dimension. I started to tell them what happened, then bit my tongue. This dark fear laced with fury raged through my veins, scalding and painful. I stared at each person in the room, all looking back at me with concern, and knew I couldn’t share this.
Because I wasn’t going to wait until we got back to Nikolos’s house to have them do the spell that ripped into the hell dimension.
I was going tonight.
Dooby was here to call the elemental. Blythe was here to bind it and if we freed the other witches, I knew they could help. Castor and Elsa would take care of my body.
Phro eyed me from the corner of the room, her expression worried, as if she knew what I was thinking. I schooled my own and took in their costumes. “Wow. You guys look great!”
Blythe had been built for this style dress. The yellow and crimson displayed her curves to advantage, the colors a complement to her creamy skin and soft, blonde hair. Castor and Dooby could have walked off a movie set in soft, buttery-beige pants and frilly shirts. Castor had a forest-green velvet doublet over his. The shirt Dooby wore probably came from his own closet.
Elsa, like me, wasn’t much of a skirt wearer. She had on something similar to the guys, her pants in a soft blue, her poet’s shirt in black. She’d pulled her hair into a tight bun and fit a black Viking skullcap over it. She held up my outfit. “You’d better hurry. I came in to wake you up early. If we want to get to Sophie before the concert, we should leave in fifteen minutes.”
I scrambled out from under the covers, grabbed the costume and ran into the bathroom, hoping my foot wouldn’t leave any bloody footprints if I moved fast. I checked it first—didn’t look too bad. I did wash my foot with soap and water in the bathtub.
Looking at the outfit, I realized I wouldn’t be able to keep the T-shirt on underneath for warmth. The neckline wouldn’t be right. So I pulled the tunic top over my head, surprised when it fit my body like a glove. The hood covered most of my head, so I just left my hair down. The long pants slid on easily and they were so soft I played with the idea of just wearing these from now on. I smoothed everything down, opened the door and headed to the mirror, thinking black eyeliner would make this look rock. I stopped, stunned when I saw my reflection.
“Castor and I hid the book in a safe place so we can both go.” Dooby walked up behind me. “Holy shit. I know you can’t see it, but your ass looks fantastic in those pants. The bottom of that top opens enough to play peek-a-boo. I like. I like so much.”
I frowned at him, but secretly admitted I loved this thing. “I’m going to be warmer than all of you.”
“True. But it’s a pretty nice night. Temperature is up in the fifties.”
Now that was good news. I brushed my teeth, applied eyeliner, a little lip gloss, then pulled down the hood to run a brush through my hair. I decided to go ahead and tie my hair back at my nape. That way it wouldn’t get in my face. I set the brush down, stared into the mirror and ignored the thousand butterflies in my stomach as I sneaked the last thing out of my bag. The cigar I’d purchased at the gift shop. I slid it into my bra. This was it. When we stepped outside the motel room, I hummed, calling the bees. The moon was full, providing them light, but some still flew in a sluggish pattern.
“Dammit, Beri!” Elsa jumped into her SUV and slammed the door.
Grinning, I called more. I was hoping Fenris would hear. Or follow the trail of flying food. He did. He fluttered around my head, clucking his tongue. “Now this is how you should always dress.”
“You know, Fenris, I’d agree if it didn’t mean I’d be blending even less. Can’t have that in my line of work, you know.”
His wings beat fast. I could hear the tiny drum sound, the speed of air being kicked up around him.
“Want to come with us and see what’s damaging the forests? It’s possible you can hide under my hood.” Don’t know why I asked. He had to come to give us blood.
“I can keep to the trees.”
Blythe tapped me on the shoulder. “We don’t have earplugs that would fit him. What about the music?”
His little spine snapped straight, his shoulders went back. “I am immune to another’s thrall.”
“Are you sure about that?” I asked. He was so small, one tug on his life energy from that lilin would probably be all it took.
He merely scowled and flew into the vehicle.
People were already gathered when we arrived, which wasn’t all that surprising since so many had set up tents along the opposite side of the road. Luckily, the concert flyer had had that map or we would have never found the place. Blythe had pulled up the exact spot on the Internet earlier and we’d discovered the land belonged to a farmer. From the aerial photos, it looked like he farmed part of the property while the back was left to grow wild. There were acres of old trees and a clearing, perfect for a concert.
> As soon as we drove onto the farmer’s land, the magic crept under my skin like an invisible hand trying to fillet me. Shuddering, I rubbed my arms. “Feel that, Blythe?” I twisted in my seat to look at her.
She nodded, her eyebrows together with worry. “This is different. It’s dark, really dark.”
“It’s not just dark,” Dooby said. “No mere farmer owns this land. He’s one of my kind and from the feel to the air, he’s been doing bad, bad things to the earth.”
I snapped my mouth closed because I could taste this magic. Bitter, acrid, the only description I could think to explain it was death. It tasted of long-dead things here. It took effort to hold back a gag.
Elsa turned her big car around. “I spotted RVs. Nice ones. I’m going to park a little ways from those, but on the other side of the trees. So hold on, we’re going off-road.”
She turned the wheel and I immediately braced my arms on the dashboard because deep ruts in the ground jostled the SUV like crazy. There was a thump and swearing in the back. I glanced over my shoulder to find my brother rubbing the side of his head. He hadn’t cut his hair for this and it fell in beautiful copper waves past his shoulders.
My sister laughed and pushed her foot down on the gas. “I was wondering how this baby would do.”
I spotted a small group of people behind one of the RVs. “Hey, you’re attracting attention.”
“Far as they know, we’re fans having a joy ride before the concert.”
“Elsa, most of their fans are emaciated and tired.”
“Oh yeah.” She slowed, but her bottom lip poked out a bit.
Chuckling, I eyed the group who had stopped paying attention to us. They stood in a circle, holding hands. Goddess, everything about these concerts screamed cult. I hated cults. Had actually tracked down a bugbear in one once that had been hired to scare the children on the compound into compliance. He hadn’t merely crawled out from under beds or jumped out of closets either. The cult leader had locked misbehaving children in a dark room with the bugbear. Bugbears had lungs that sounded like they were full of gravel and they smelled like the inside of a dirty barn, but the worst was their penchant for biting. The memory of that still made barbed anger unfurl inside me. I’d stuffed the cult leader’s pockets with raw meat and locked him in the room with the creature.
Sometimes, I enjoy my mean streak.
A witch in one of the long, flowing blue robes from the last concert walked to the side of the group. She nodded and smiled at them and I recognized her head of curly hair instantly. Sophie. She shifted a satchel onto her shoulder as she stepped into the forest. Moonlight glinted off the blade in her hand. I couldn’t tell what it was from this distance, but I hoped it was a bolline for cutting herbs. I was just a little too scared about what I was about to do at this concert to be dealing with a blood sacrifice.
“Blythe, I just saw Sophie going into the trees by herself. This is the perfect time to catch her. Elsa, can you drive over there and park behind those trees?” I pointed.
“Perfect,” she agreed. “We’ll be out of sight from the others.”
She parked the car. Castor and Dooby got out fast. Dooby bent to touch his toes and Castor stretched up. They’d been crammed in the back, with Blythe and her bag between them, for over an hour. I walked around, stomping a little to return circulation to my legs. My outfit would probably have looked better with some high-heeled boots, but I was sincerely glad I’d worn a pair of sturdy hiking shoes. They might ruin the effect of the ensemble, but I didn’t really give a shit. I just didn’t want the Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee bouncers to recognize me too fast.
Castor walked around to open the back. He pulled out the bow and arrows, fitting the bow over his neck and the arrow holder over his shoulder. He looked like he’d walked off the set of a Robin Hood show.
“It’s good. Authentic.” A smile tugged at the corner of my lips. “The teen girls are going to be all over you.”
“Girls, I would like. Teen? No thanks.” He shuddered.
Fenris flew out of the trunk, his cape fluttering. “The necromancer is right. There is an air of dead things here.” He dropped to the ground and licked a blade of grass. “It’s in the ground and it runs deep. It might be a good thing to let the witches destroy this place.”
“But then they’d destroy all these people.”
He shrugged and sped off. “I’m going to do some reconnaissance.”
I curled my lip at his retreating form before walking to the back of Elsa’s vehicle to grab the hefty flashlight she kept there. “What did I expect from a vampire?” I murmured half under my breath.
Blythe heard me. “Vampires don’t respect human life.”
“They don’t,” Dooby agreed. “And this one doesn’t even need them for food, so he will even less. I’m surprised he hasn’t taken off, to tell you the truth.”
“We burned down his home. Where’s he gonna go?” Restlessness pricked the back of my neck. We were taking too long to get into that forest. Catching Blythe’s mentor alone was the only way this would work.
Blythe sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Let’s just go find Sophie.”
Nodding, I backed toward the forest. “Elsa, why don’t you, Castor and Dooby stay here and keep an eye on that group? You can alert me if they start going into the forest.”
“Sure thing.” She pulled out her shirt and glanced down at it, as if looking for a place to tuck her gun.
Swallowing a grin, I stepped around a tree, clicked on the light and tried to scout out the places with the least dry leaves, but once again the effort was wasted. We were going to make noise, no matter how softly we walked in here. Blythe took out her baggie of the ground sweet-woodruff root and I frowned at how very little she’d been able to squeeze out of it. “We have to make sure she steps over it.”
“On it would be better,” Blythe whispered. She shivered.
“You should have brought your coat.”
“And ruin the dress? No way. It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever worn.” She suddenly stopped, cocked her head. “Do you hear that?”
I closed my eyes to better focus on sounds. I heard the usual—crickets and different birds, even an owl. I heard the faint background noise from the concert setup. Then, every hair on my body stood at attention as a low laugh trickled through the shadowy forest. “I heard that same laugh when we were scouting out the last concert. Whoever that is, he sure is happy about something.”
“It really scares me, Beri.” She put a hand on my arm, dropped her voice to a whisper. “It’s familiar. I’ve heard that laugh before but I can’t remember where.”
“Come on, let’s walk faster.” I palmed the handle of one blade, just in case, but kept it out of sight because I spotted Blythe’s mentor kneeling next to a bush and cutting something off the ground below it. With the heavy leaf cover, the moonlight didn’t penetrate this part of the woods, so I couldn’t see what she was sawing.
I heard Blythe take a deep breath next to me before calling out softly, “Sophie?”
Her mentor turned. I lifted the flashlight in time to catch the beautiful smile that lit up her stunning face.
“Blythe!” She stood and hurried toward us.
“Drop the fucking herb,” I muttered to Blythe. “Right in front of you.”
Blythe hurriedly poured the woodruff into her hand and sprinkled it on the ground in front of her.
Unfortunately, Sophie stopped before she stepped on it. She murmured something I couldn’t make out and opened her hand palm up. A small light formed then rose above our heads to shine down on our small area. It was like being under a bright porch light. Blythe needed to learn that trick. Big time.
Sophie, in this soft light, was even more beautiful, with her sculpted chin, full lips and big brown eyes. They’d been blue during the concert, but they’d glowed like they were lit from the inside by an electrical current. Now, the brown-hazel made her look more human.
“You came to see the co
ncert?” she asked. “I’m so happy!”
Blythe frowned. “You’re happy I’m in the woods? When are you ever happy when I’m in the woods?”
Sophie’s smile had a plastic edge that looked borderline psychotic. “I’m pleased to see you and pleased that you’ll hear the beautiful music we’re making. Grima has taught us so much about focus and beauty. And life.”
She beamed and my skin crawled. There wasn’t a spark of real personality in those eyes. It was like she’d been molded into someone else’s image of happy, like a puppeteer had designed her.
“Who is Grima?” I asked.
“She is a goddess who loves life and is teaching us to do the same.”
I frowned. “She’s some kind of succubus who is making you enthrall people so she can feed off them.”
“No,” Sophie said softly. “She is beauty personified and everything we should all strive to be.”
“Sophie?” Blythe took a step back. “She’s a lilin, a kind of demon. I don’t understand how you can’t know that.”
Sophie took another step and when she froze I breathed a sigh of relief because I knew she’d stepped where we needed her to. She stood still for so long I began to worry we’d accidentally triggered some kind of witch location device and she was waiting for her Grima. Then she looked around, blinking, alarm filling her expression so fast I started looking around too.
She focused on Blythe and this time, she really saw her. There was no mistaking the absolute love in her expression as she dropped her bag and knife and rushed forward to hug the little witch. “Blythe! It’s so good to see you, but you have to get out of here. Now!”
Blythe hugged her back. “We know about the lilin and what she does and we’re going to stop her.”
Sophie shook her head, making her black curls fly about. “She’s powerful and you can’t stop her. And goodness, what are you doing in a forest?” She dropped to her knees and grabbed her satchel, then glanced up to look at Blythe’s. “Do you have any fern seeds in your bag?”
“Of course. Why?”
Blood of an Ancient: A Beri O'Dell Book, Book 2 Page 16