by Rachel Aaron
The spot was now empty, and though he sniffed the air, he caught no hint of ozone. Suddenly exhausted, he leaned back and gazed up at the Dead Mountain, silently begging for Eli to hurry.
Overhead, unseen, the sky shuddered and began to bulge inward.
CHAPTER
21
Nico and Eli were running, lungs pumping as they charged up the slope of the Dead Mountain. The jump had taken them to the first ledge. After that, Nico had said something about the demon’s influence being too large to risk another trip through the shadows, and they’d decided to go the rest of the way on foot.
Eli was beginning to wish they’d taken their chances in the dark. He thought he’d remembered the feel of the Dead Mountain, but now that he was back, his memory felt like a rosy portrait. The cold, the stillness, the unrelenting emptiness of the air around him pressed like a lead weight on his mind, making him want to curl into a ball and never get up again, but that was nothing compared to the fear.
The panic had hit him as soon as they’d left the shadows, forcing him to take a few of their precious minutes to collect himself before going on. The fear leached his strength and gnawed on his bones, weighing him down until he was sure he couldn’t take another step. He would have stopped several times over if not for Nico. She floated ahead of him, an inky spot blacker than the mountain’s stone, her white hands tugging him whenever he fell too far behind.
Eventually, the prolonged exposure dulled the panic’s edge, and Eli began to notice his surroundings. Or, rather, his lack of surroundings. On his first visit there’d been a meager town of cultists, those foolish humans who actually wanted demonseeds inside them. Now that was all gone. Buildings, people, everything had vanished without a trace. Only the flat stretch of ground and the cave leading into the mountain’s side remained to show that Eli and Nico were in the right place. Eli wondered briefly what had happened to it all before shoving the thought out of his mind. He didn’t actually want to know.
They ran across the flat stretch of stone where the town had stood and entered the cave, picking up speed as they began to climb. The farther they went, the thicker the dark became. Thanks to her flawless darksight, Nico moved the same as always, but Eli was forced to slow down, feeling the ground with his feet. Finally, Nico gave up and went back, shoving her hands into his and pulling him behind her like a wagon as she ran up the sloping tunnel.
For all the changes, some parts of the journey were the same. The return to the light, for example, was just as abrupt as Eli remembered. One moment he was stumbling like a blind man through the tunnel behind Nico; the next he was shielding his eyes and gripping the ledge to keep from plummeting down the steep cliffs.
They had emerged from the tunnel high up the mountain at the narrow path that led up to the demon’s prison at the peak. Below them, the Sleeping Mountains stretched off in all directions, their enormous peaks small and almost delicate from this great height. Though they were almost at their destination, the way forward made Eli’s head spin. The path from the cave wound along the back of a ridge with plunging cliffs on either side. There was nothing to guard against a fall, and in some places the stony path was little more than a foot wide. If any wind had dared to blow across the Dead Mountain, the way would have been completely impassable. But there were no winds here, not even the distant sound of them. Only the Dead Mountain’s heavy silence, the view, and the long, long drop.
Mindful of their time limit, Eli gritted his teeth and forced himself to go on, dragging his feet in tiny, cautious steps along the narrow ridge. He kept his eyes on the path, never daring to look down, and eventually his pace picked up. He was really starting to think they’d make it when he realized he was alone.
Eli looked around the empty path in alarm, hoping frantically that Nico hadn’t fallen before he spotted her all the way back at the tunnel’s exit. She was pressed against the mountain, her hands clapped over her mouth, yellow eyes wide with horror. For a moment Eli wondered dumbly if she was scared of heights, but then he saw where her terrified eyes were staring.
She was looking down, all the way down the cliffs to the enormous valley that cut through the Sleeping Mountains like a scar. The valley ran north in an unnaturally straight line from the Dead Mountain’s base. Its flat floor was riddled with craters and rubble, all that remained of the mountains that had once stood in its path. And though he couldn’t see it from this distance, Eli knew that straight road of a valley ended at the slopes of the Shaper Mountain itself. A lasting reminder of the Demon’s last and most successful attempt to take out the only spirit that could imprison the horror he’d unleashed on the world.
With a silent curse, Eli turned on his heel and picked his way as fast as possible back to her across the ridge. “Nico,” he whispered, taking her hand. “Come on. We have to go.”
He might have been talking to the mountain itself for all the good it did. Nico didn’t budge, even when he touched her. She stood as still as the stone under her feet, staring at the scar like she’d seen a ghost.
“Nico,” Eli said again, more firmly this time. He tugged her hand.
“I did this,” she whispered, her voice so quiet he almost didn’t hear it.
Eli closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “That was a long time ago, Nico, and it wasn’t your fault.”
“I did this,” she said again, louder. “There were mountains there, and I ate them.” Her voice raised to a wail. “I killed them!”
“Nico!” Eli shouted, grabbing her shoulders. “That wasn’t you. That was the Daughter of the Dead Mountain. That was a slave, Nico. A slave with no choice and no mind of her own. You’re free, remember? You won your freedom when you beat the demon. Remember what happened up by the bandit camp. You won. You have no master but yourself. Now come on, we need you.” He dropped his grip on her shoulders and reached down to gently touch her fingers instead, pressing them between his own. “Please?”
Nico shivered as though he’d dunked her in ice water, and the spell was broken. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, pulling away. She began to stride forward only to stop a few steps later. “Thank you,” she said, looking over her shoulder.
“You’re welcome,” Eli said, hurrying after her. “Now let’s go. If we’re not back by the time Josef is done thrashing the Lord of Storms, I’m going to have to listen to him and Miranda whining about waiting on us. Frankly, I’d rather be eaten by a demon.”
Nico smiled at that. She waited until he reached her, and then they jogged together up the ridge path toward the steep switchback trail to the peak. When they reached it, they began to run full out, climbing the steep path as fast as they could until, at last, they stood before the entrance to the cave at the very top.
Eli stopped and bent over, clutching his knees as he panted. Nico wasn’t winded at all, but she stopped as well, staring at the wall of darkness that waited beyond the cave’s mouth. No light penetrated the shadows beyond the stone lip. Instead, the blackness seemed to press outward, lapping at the edges of the door like overflowing water.
“You sure you can do this?” Eli said, glancing at her as he straightened up.
“I already have,” Nico answered, striding forward. “Come on.”
Eli took a deep, final breath and followed her into the dark.
The shadows swallowed them the second their feet crossed the threshold. Eli remembered the seal at the last second, and he caught Nico’s arm just before she stepped into it. She stopped at once, her bare foot hovering just above the circle carved deep into the stone, the physical edge of the demon’s prison. Nico jerked back at once, and her eyes locked on the figure sitting at the center of the Lady’s seal.
As before, the darkness here had a strange quality. Though there was no light, Eli could see clearly, and what he saw made him frown. The man sitting in the middle of the seal wasn’t the one he’d spoken with weeks before when he’d come here searching for hints of how to find Slorn. That time, the demon had been a young man, little
more than a boy. The person smiling up at them now was middle aged, a man who would have been handsome if not for his caved-in cheeks and the deep circles below his eyes. The voice, however, was exactly the same.
“Well, well,” the man said, drawing each word out in that terrifying double harmonic that still haunted Eli’s dreams. “Look who’s come home. It is good to see you, daughter. You’re looking well.”
Nico stiffened. “I’m no child of yours, demon,” she said. “And this was never my home.”
The man shook his head with a tsking sound. “You wound me,” he said. “How cruel. Cruel and stupid. Is that any way to talk when you’re here to beg a favor?”
Nico’s eyes widened, and the man’s face split into a grin far too wide for normal human muscles. “Oh yes, I know what’s happened,” he said. “Not being of this world, I couldn’t feel the Hunter’s death, but I didn’t need to. I can taste their joy, just as you can.”
Nico looked away.
“Come now,” the demon said. “You’re one of us now. Surely you can feel them.” He raised his hand, pointing up with one thin, dirty finger. “They’re getting close. I’d say we’re down to minutes before the first cracks appear.” He dropped his arm, and his horrible smile grew wider still. “If you have an offer, dearest, you’d best speak it quickly.”
Nico began to shiver, and Eli grabbed her arm. “I’m the one making the deal, demon,” he said, holding her steady.
The demon’s grin fell, and he gave Eli a skeptical look. “A deal from the swindler?” he said. “Eli Monpress, the great con man? This I have to hear.”
“Even I can’t pull a con on a deal this simple,” Eli said. “We need you to help us break down the wall the Shepherdess has placed over the Between. In return, we will break the seal on your prison.”
The demon leaned back on his bony haunches. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Eli said. “Tit for tat.”
“And what happens after I break this wall?”
“I don’t know,” Eli answered, his voice deep and sincere. “But if we don’t break it, we all die. Given those odds, I’m willing to take a chance.”
“And what if I betray you?” the demon drawled. “After all, you have to free me first. How do you know I won’t just eat you whole and rush to help my long-lost brothers tear your world apart?”
Now it was Eli’s turn to smile. “Because you don’t want them here any more than we do. Demons are predators, and I never met a predator who willingly shared his territory. You may be a prisoner here, but you’re locked in with the food while they’re outside starving. If the shell breaks, the demons will charge in and eat everything, and then you’d all be out of luck, starving and alone in the infinite dark. You don’t want that, do you?”
The demon stared at him for a long second, and then he stood up with a jerk. The man walked forward, his legs moving like a puppet’s as it stepped to the edge of the seal, stopping just before his bare toes touched the line. This close, Eli could smell the decay of the human body the demon wore like a skin. The man’s empty eyes were inches from his own, close enough that Eli could see the shadows twisting and boiling behind them.
“You see more than a blind human should,” the demon whispered.
“But I’m right, aren’t I?” Eli said, smirking in the demon’s face. “Now, are you going to help us or not?”
Slowly, the demon’s mouth turned up again into that too-wide grin. “I am your loyal servant,” he said, his dual-tone voice purring in his throat. “Set me free and I promise I will do whatever is necessary to preserve the shell. And that’s a promise you can trust, just ask my little girl. She knows how seriously I take my obligations.”
Eli didn’t give him the pleasure of looking at Nico. Instead, he glanced pointedly at the seal’s edge, right beside the demon’s foot. “You’d better stand back.”
The demon shrugged. “Wouldn’t matter if I did. My true self is below the mountain, and I was tired of this skin anyway.” The horrible grin grew wider still. “Besides, it shouldn’t take much. This seal was always barely enough to hold me. A little more pressure and the mark will crumble, but be quick.” The shadowed eyes flicked up to the ceiling. “Not much time.”
Eli smiled back with his best professional smile before turning to Nico. She was huddled beside him, staring hard at the seal at their feet.
“Can you do it?”
Nico nodded. “Move against the wall and cover your ears.”
Eli obeyed, pressing his back against the stone and plugging his ears with his fingers.
Nico watched until he was in position, and then she stepped up to stand where he had been, face-to-face with the grinning monster in the human skin. She glared at the demon for a second, nostrils flaring, and then, without warning, she dropped, her fist flying toward the edge of the seal.
When her knuckles struck it, the whole mountain rang like a gong. The sound rattled Eli’s bones and knocked his teeth. Forgetting his ears, Eli clutched his chest. He could feel the vibrations in his lungs, turning his chest into a solid, quivering mass. Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, Nico punched her fist down again.
This time, her hand landed with a sickening crack. At first, Eli thought she’d broken her fingers, but then he saw that it was the floor that had cracked. All at once, the great circular seal began to glow. Both demons hissed at the light, and the smell of burning skin filled Eli’s nostrils. But it lasted only a moment. As soon as the light flared, the Lady’s seal began to splinter.
Cracks ran fast as falling water between the intricate lines, splintering the Shepherdess’s beautiful pattern into chaos. Each crack was as loud as a breaking bone, and the combined effect drowned out even the gong-like ring of the mountain below. The sound was so enormous Eli stopped trying to keep it out after the first seconds. Instead, he lay against the wall and let it flow through him, gritting his teeth as he waited for the end.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait long. Fast as it had started, the cracking stopped, and the room plunged back into darkness. Shaking his head, Eli looked down. After the flash of light, the dark was impenetrable, but he didn’t need to see. He could feel the truth. The oppressive air of the mountain had vanished. The Shepherdess’s seal was broken. The demon was free.
As his eyes adjusted, the first thing Eli saw was the demon’s human body falling to the ground. It crumbled like ash when it hit, bones and flesh falling away to dust. As the body disintegrated, the shadows above it twisted and took a step over the edge of the shattered seal, and as they crossed the barrier, they became a man.
Eli jerked back. The demon looked nothing like he’d expected. The man was as tall as Josef, but his face reminded Eli of his adopted father and mentor, Giuseppe Monpress. He couldn’t quite place the resemblance, the nose, maybe, or the thin mouth turned up in a smug smile, but it was enough to make him suddenly homesick, which was a very odd feeling for him. Eli had never been homesick before.
But before he could fall any further into nostalgia, Eli caught sight of the man’s eyes, and all feelings of warmth vanished. The demon’s eyes were as yellow as Nico’s, but where hers were determined, his were so cruel Eli took a step back, wincing as he bumped into the wall. The demon just smirked and stepped out of the cave and into the sunlight.
“What are we waiting for?” he said, and Eli winced again. The demon’s voice had never fit his form before. It had always been too deep, and that double harmonic had never matched a human throat. But the demon’s voice matched this body perfectly, and Eli had to clench his teeth to keep from cowering.
“Nothing,” Eli answered, proud that his voice wasn’t as wobbly as his insides. “Let’s go.”
The demon looked back over his shoulder, pinning Eli with those cruel yellow eyes for a single breath before vanishing into his own shadow. Eli jumped with a curse and turned to Nico. She was still kneeling on the floor, cradling the fist she’d used to crack the seal in her lap.
&nb
sp; “You okay?” Eli asked, moving to help her.
Nico nodded and held out her arms. “We need to hurry.”
Eli didn’t wait to be told twice. He stepped into Nico’s arms. The moment he made contact, they slid into the dark.
Miranda woke with a start, sitting bolt upright. She regretted it immediately, slumping back to the ground with a sob. Powers, she felt like she’d been struck by lightning while getting run over by a cart. Her body was twitchy and everything ached, especially her skin, which felt far too small all of a sudden.
As her brain began to process the sensations, she slowly became aware of other things. She was cold, for one, but only on her back. Her shoulders were actually quite warm, and there was something hot and wet against her face.
She cracked her eyes. Gin’s muzzle filled her vision, his red tongue sliding back between his teeth the second he saw her eyes.
“How are you feeling?” he growled.
“Like I always feel when I wake up like this,” Miranda grumbled. “Horrible.”
The ghosthound snorted, blowing a blast of hot air across her face. “Looks like your brain didn’t get fried at least.”
“Fried?” Miranda said. She tried to think back to what had happened, but her body cringed from the memory. Groaning, she reached up to rub her neck, but as her fingers landed, she realized her skin was covered in something slick and warm.
She snatched her hand away and held it up, eyes widening when she saw the slick, red liquid on her fingertips. Blood. She touched her neck again, running her fingers over her jawline. Blood covered her cheeks and neck in a red torrent running from her ears, which, now that she thought about it, hurt a great deal. Miranda touched them tenderly, wincing as the contact sent an echo of pain through her head. “What happened to me?”