The Fortress is cold and forbidding. The black walls and white floors make my eyes hurt. Every ornament, every drape, and all the rugs are crimson. Dust coats every surface, but here and there are streaks, which tell me that there have been people here recently.
Mammon and his spies.
Lilith.
I must find her.
I stick to the shadows, moving within them, becoming one with them. There is very little light lancing in through the windows high up on the walls. This is a place of darkness. If I focus, I can feel the vibrations of pain etched into its walls. If I stop and listen, I can hear the echo of screams.
But I do neither of those things. I block out the residue of pain and forge on, examining room after room, climbing staircase after staircase.
My eyes tell me that there is no threat here.
Mammon is not here.
There are no guards.
And yet my gut warns me to beware. I hit the second floor of this accursed place and icy fingers rake up my spine.
I’m not alone.
Windows line the left wall of this corridor and gauzy red drapes cover the glass. Everything is still and silent, and then, as if a switch has been flipped, the drapes begin to billow outward into the room as if blown by a breeze.
But the windows are closed.
There is no breeze.
The shadows grow longer, stretching toward me, and it takes everything in my will not to back away.
I’m a fucking assassin, and I will not be spooked by smoke and mirrors.
There is someone here.
And they’re playing games.
“Show yourself.” My voice sounds abrasive in the silence. Too loud and too sharp. “Stop playing games and show yourself.”
Laughter, cruel and cutting, slices across my senses, and my bladder clenches.
I draw my blades. “Why don’t you laugh in my face, huh?”
The air before me ripples and then there is a face right up against mine. Its impossibly wide grin and empty black eyes make my heart stutter, but my scream of shock remains trapped in my throat. Still, my body reacts as trained, slashing at the face with my daggers.
But the face is gone.
Laughter echoes around me, louder, closer, and then the corridor is filled with spectral bodies and faces contorted in manic smiles. But now that I look closer, the smiles aren’t real. They’re cut into the faces, hooked in place with metal and pins. Dried blood mars cheeks and chins, and empty eye sockets watch me hungrily.
“Come and play.” The voice is raspy and broken. “He likes it when we play.”
This time I listen to my body and take a step back.
These aren’t beings I can fight. These are specters, and I know in my gut that what I seek lies down this corridor, beyond the red door at the end. To get to it, I’ll need to pass through the dead.
These specters are ancient. I can sense that much, and specters are able to do damage to the living if they desire. I can sense their harmful intentions. If I’m incapacitated, then the others will be at risk. They’ll be walking onto this corridor with no idea what awaits them.
As much as I hate to do it, retreat is the wisest option.
I’ll need back-up for this.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Fee
Keon was gone for what felt like forever, and when he reappeared, he looked shaken.
“What is it?” Samael asked. “What did you find?”
“Mammon isn’t here. No guards either,” he said. “I’m pretty sure the place is deserted except…”
“Except?” Mal probed.
“There are specters blocking my path to a red door. I believe Lilith is behind that door.”
I frowned up at him. “You mean ghosts?”
“No,” Azazel said. “A ghost is a spirit that still retains some semblance of the personality it had in life. A specter is a warped thing that may or may not have been a person. It may be the residue of an entity, or the memory of horror given form.”
“Satan committed atrocities in this place for centuries,” Samael said. “It’s no wonder his acts of torture and depravity left a mark.”
There was only one thing we needed to know. “Can they hurt us?”
“Yes,” Samael said. “If they wish to, they can. They’ll draw on our energy to do so.”
“Can we hurt them?”
Samael shook his head. “We can’t hurt them, because we don’t exist on the same plane as they do, but they’re able to slip onto ours and do harm.”
“Then we barrel our way through,” Azazel said. “We all heal fast. We’ll evade as much as possible.”
But I had a better idea. “Or we provide a diversion and draw them away from the corridor.”
“No,” Azazel said.
“You haven’t even heard my idea, yet.”
“I don’t need to hear it to know it will involve you playing decoy.”
“Look, I might be able to communicate with them if I lower my shields.”
“Hell, no,” Mal said. “Those things are pain. You do not want to feel that.”
I met Mal’s gaze levelly. “I can handle it. It’s a good plan. I can circle back and join you guys.”
He arched a brow. “And what makes you think you’ll get them to follow you? You can sense other’s emotions, but you can’t make them feel things… Not like I can.”
“Fine. Then we both play decoy.”
Azazel didn’t look happy and was about to protest when Samael cut him off. “It’s a good plan.” His expression was thoughtful. “But it’s also dangerous. I won’t put you in unnecessary danger, blossom.”
But I was determined. “We can do this. You focus on getting to Lilith. Mal and I will lead the specters away from the corridor to buy you time.”
I could tell neither male was happy with this idea, but it was a solid plan that would get us to Lilith fast and with minimal damage.
Samael nodded curtly, and Azazel’s jaw clenched.
“Be careful,” he bit out. “Mal…”
“I got this,” Mal said. He looked down at me. “We got this. Where’s the corridor?”
“I’ll show you,” Keon said.
We followed him into the fortress.
* * *
The obsidian steps leading up to the second floor were dark and ominous before us.
Samael, Keon, and Azazel crouched in the shadows out of view.
Mal reached for my hand. “You ready?”
I nodded and slipped my palm into his.
We ascended together and my skin began to prickle with awareness of an otherworldly presence.
I’d worked with ghosts most of my adult life, and I’d never felt anything like this. Despair, hatred, and hunger. It rivaled the malignant. It rivaled the depravity that resided in The Eye. Sorrow, pain, and emptiness clawed at my chest until it was a hollow vacuum of nothingness.
Thing was, I hadn’t dropped my shields. How strong would these emotions be if I did?
We reached the top of the staircase, took a right like Keon had instructed, and the awful crawling sensation that had bloomed to life across my skin intensified.
“Do you feel that?” Mal whispered.
“Yeah.”
The stationary drapes began to billow and laughter filled the corridor ahead of us. My gaze locked on the red door.
Keon was certain Lilith was behind it.
What if he was wrong?
No time to worry about that now, because visages materialized out of thin air—horrific mask-like faces contorted in representations of mirth. My stomach cramped and nausea rolled up my throat. Each visage grew a skeletal, emaciated body. Skin hung off bone, and muscle and ligaments were visible through horrific wounds.
Satan had done this.
“Join us,” several voices said in unison. “Be us.”
Yeah, no thanks.
“You’re lonely,” Mal said. “You hunger for something, and you don’t know what that is.”
>
“Yessss.”
“I can show you.” Mal squeezed my hand. “Get ready to run,” he whispered.
The specters went still as if mesmerized.
Mal was doing his thing and planting a suggestion in their minds.
Their heads fell back, and a collective moan rose into the air.
Mal tugged me back a step. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
The specters’ heads snapped forward, and they surged toward us.
We turned and ran.
* * *
Azazel
Fee and Mal run down the staircase and take a left into the maze that’s the first floor. Every instinct demands I go after her and protect her, but I remind myself of her resilience and determination. She is perfectly capable, and she’s not alone.
Mal will have her back.
They’ll be fine.
Samael slips from the shadows and I see my struggle echoed on his face. He loves her, even though he barely knows her. How can that be? He shakes his head slightly and heads for the steps
I catch Keon’s yellow gaze in the gloom as it tears itself from the corridor Fee has run down. His hands are fisted as if he’s holding himself back.
He loves her.
The thought is a searing conviction that shatters me, and instead of rage or indignation, pity twists my heart.
He catches me watching him, and his lip curls in derision as the mask of the assassin falls back into place.
A façade.
A cloak.
Damn the fool.
Damn him for feeling what he feels.
We take the steps two at a time. The corridor is deserted, silent, and empty, and the red door screams at us to open it.
Samael presses his palm to the painted wood and closes his eyes. A shuddering sigh rattles his chest.
“Please be here,” he says.
Then he pushes open the door and power stings my skin. I draw a sharp breath, but Samael passes over the threshold as if he feels nothing.
Keon makes a strangled sound as he steps closer to the door. He backs up a little before forcing himself to advance. He feels the abrasive energy too. Could this be what’s kept the specters out of this room? But my thoughts take a back seat as I enter the room properly and see my mother for the first time in weeks.
At least I think the figure curled up on the floor is her. She’s in a beautifully crafted cage with fleur de lis decal. But it’s the silver runes etched into the metal that grip me.
“Demon trap,” Samael says. “The bastard.” He crouches by the cage. “Lilith, my love. Can you hear me?”
The figure in the cage slowly raises her head, long dark hair falling like a waterfall to frame her pale, elfin face.
She’s too pale, and her eyes are dark smudges in her face, dazed and confused.
“No more…” She whispers. “Mammon, no more.” She hugs her arms to her, and I see the red angry welts for the first time.
“What is that?”
Samael growls low in his chest. “The lash of Dante, the only weapon that can leave a scar on an original fallen. It belonged to Satan. Mammon said he destroyed it.”
But he didn’t. He kept it, and he used it on my mother.
“Lilith… Mother… We’re here to get you out.”
Lilith looks my way with a frown.
“It’s me, Azazel.”
Her lip trembles. “My son… You have come for me.”
“Lilith!” There’s a snap to Samael’s tone now. “You’re stronger than this. Wake up, woman. Wake up and greet your husband.”
Lilith flinches as if slapped and then it’s as if a veil lifts and her expression clears. Her gaze zeroes in on Samael, and her mouth parts in shock.
“My love,” Samael says tentatively.
“Yes!” She lunges for the bars then screams and falls back, clutching her smoking hands. “That bastard. That bastard needs to die.” She blinks rapidly. “You must release me, my love.”
Samael’s expression is earnest. “Of course.”
We have Lilith, but my soulmate is out there, running for her life, and it takes everything I have to not go running after her.
She’s with Mal.
They’ll be fine.
Fee, please be safe.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Fee
I ran through the corridors with Mal at my side. We skidded around corners, ducked through arches and barreled down stairs to put distance between us and the specters. We passed several rooms, all with black doors, and then a couple of red doors like the one on the second floor. But going into a room wasn’t an option. We couldn’t risk getting trapped.
I had no clue where the fuck we were, and I was pretty sure Mal was just as clueless. Doubling back had been a great plan, but which way was back?
Samael and the others would be through the red door by now. They would have found Lilith if she was there. That was some consolation. We just needed to shake our unwanted entourage.
We entered a chamber with a high vaulted ceiling and a checkerboard floor—some kind of reception room with fancy chaise lounges, and shit, I didn’t have time to check out the décor. What mattered was that this was a dead end. Except—
“Look!” Mal grabbed my hand and propelled me across the room with him toward a red door.
It looked exactly the same as the one on the second floor and the few we’d seen scattered about the place during out mad dash.
“I have a theory,” Mal said.
Cackles and howls filled the air behind us.
“Okay, spill it then.”
But Mal shoved the door open and a strange energy stung my skin, drawing a yelp. He made a muffled sound of protest before crossing the threshold and taking me with him. Needles pricked my skin.
Power.
Some kind of energy field.
Mal slammed the door and drew me away from it.
We stood in silence. Waiting.
“You think they can’t get in, don’t you?” I glanced up at him, noting the tick in his jaw. “You think red doors are safe zones.”
“If I’m wrong, we’re fucked,” he said.
Long seconds ticked by and nothing happened. “You were right.”
He ran a hand over his face. “I figured if Mammon was using this place, he’d have safe zones.”
“You think he warded rooms.”
It made sense.
Mal scanned the room we were in. “I think he may have done more than that.”
I followed his gaze. The room was smallish and unremarkable—a study with bookshelves and an antique desk. There was nothing special about it, so why ward it?
Mal approached the bookshelves and started to run his fingers over the wood. He touched the books, brow crinkled in a frown.
Wait a second. “You think there’s a hidden passage.”
“I do. Help me find it.”
The next ten minutes were spent fiddling with the bookcases and pulling out the books until the floor was littered with them, but nothing clicked or whirred, and no hidden passage was revealed.
“Urgh.” I flopped into the desk chair. “This is hopeless. I think we might be wrong.”
Mal gnawed on his bottom lip, his emerald eyes speculative. “I can’t believe that. There has to be something.”
I reached for the paperweight on the desk, just wanting something to fiddle with but it wouldn’t budge. It was stuck to the wood. Wait a bloody second. I twisted it and it turned with a click.
There was a soft whirring sound, like cogs turning, and then the bookcase we’d spent ages examining parted to reveal a slender passage and a set of steps.
“Bingo!” Mal said. “This is it. This is how Mammon and his cronies got about without running into those things. I bet there’s access to every red door room in this place.”
He grinned, triumphant.
I hugged his waist. “You’re a fucking genius.”
“I’m your fucking genius.” He took my hand.
“Down the rabbit hole we go.” He led me into darkness.
* * *
Mal, my beautiful, clever Mal was right. The stairwell was part of a network that spat us out into several rooms. Dining room, a kitchen, a couple of bedchambers and the entrance hall where we’d first come in.
It was all connected like a fucking warren.
“We need to find our way back to the second floor,” Mal said. He closed his eyes for a long beat.
“What are you doing?”
“Visualizing. One second.”
We were standing in the narrow passage in the warren, which was dimly lit by slender bulbs stuck to the wall at regular intervals.
“I think we go this way,” Mal said and doubled back the way we’d come.
“Up the stairs we just passed?”
“Yeah.” He took my hand and laced his fingers through mine. “Can I just say, real quick, that I fucking love you?”
I smiled at him. “You can, and I love you too.”
He tentatively touched my face. “You can’t do that again, okay?”
There was no need for him to clarify. I knew what he was referring to. “I couldn’t let him die, Mal.”
“I know why you did it, but Fee…you were willing to leave us behind.”
What? “No. that’s not true. I… I never meant that.”
“I know you didn’t, but that’s what you did. You could have died, and some part of you knew that, yet you still jumped in after him. You risked your future with me and Azazel for him.”
My stomach quivered. I’d acted on instinct. I’d acted with my heart, but I hadn’t thought about what my death would do to my guys. Had I been selfish? Reckless?
“Fee…” He stepped down toward me and cupped my face. “Your heart is like the ocean, vast and deep. I get why you went after him. I understand how you feel about him.”
“I would have done the same for you or Azazel.”
“I know.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “But you can’t lose your life for one of us. Because if you do, then you kill us all.”
I nodded mutely. “I’m sorry.”
Reaper Unleashed: Deadside Reapers: Book 7 Page 19