“Do you feel that? Your blood sings for me.” The planes of his face shifted in the shadows giving the illusion of another, someone ageless and more powerful. He lightly gripped my upper arms and said in that compelling tone, “When the time comes, you will answer my call.”
“Always,” I promised before standing on my tiptoes to kiss him one last time as Sean rounded the corner. He jerked like he’d been electrocuted and froze in disbelief.
Without a word, Killian released me and continued walking. I trotted to keep up with him while Sean stalked along on the other side of me. His face nearly purple, he huffed impatiently at every tiny delay. At one crosswalk, he demanded, “What did you do with your ring?”
“I pawned it,” I lied.
Killian said, “You two have to focus. This is major. We’ll talk about this later.”
Suddenly he stopped and listened. “Got it!”
He gestured at a rusted metal door crisscrossed with a chain and padlocked. The door was partially concealed by plywood sheets left over from a construction project. A helpful citizen had spray painted obscenities across it to add some local color to the rusty door. Nice work…Very fancy painting in pretty shades of purple and red.
Killian was a thousand miles away as we waited to go inside. He was communing with his seeing-eye knife and I left him to it. I did my best to sense the undead. At the moment, all I could sense were the waves of anger rolling off of Sean so I glared meaningfully at him and he flipped me off. Turning his back to me, he called Dec who rematerialized a minute later. We all waited in varying degrees of readiness while Killian listened with his ears and his mind. Looking around, I noticed we were on 8th Avenue. It was fully dark and the streets were nearly empty now. A skinny yellow dog dug at a McDonald’s bag lying in the street and I thought of Domino. I wished she was here with us. She’d have my back without nagging. I sent my dad a quick text telling him I loved him…just in case things went south.
Dec positioned himself in front of the door and the lock mysteriously fell free. The chains hit the concrete with a slithering thunk. Peering around for an audience and finding none, we slid into the darkened building one by one. With a forceful yank, Dec closed the door behind us and I had to remind myself that we could teleport out. It was a dark as a tomb, the air stagnant and warm. Using my tiny flashlight to conserve my personal energy reserves, I followed along between Killian and Dec. Sean brought up the rear in case there was trouble. His body vibrated with restrained power and his heartbeat reverberated in my head. He was close enough for me to feel the heat coming off of him and I moved a little guiltily towards Dec. It was strange to stand so close to Sean after so much distance between us.
The dim light revealed a dusty hallway that eventually stopped at another, much older, door. The red paint had long since disintegrated and rust had taken over. With quiet precision, Dec cracked its lock and manhandled the door open against the uneven concrete floor. The harsh grating seemed supernaturally loud in the silence of the room.
His teeth gleaming in the darkness, Dec whispered, “Still got that bad feeling, sweetheart?” He’d never been scared in his life and was ready to jump into this night with both feet. I wondered vaguely if he was a wee bit insane…
Killian stood with arms hung loosely by his sides listening to the echoes in his mind. Sgaine Dutre’s brother blade glowed triumphantly in his fist, the red eye burning like brimstone. The red light brought his cheekbones into sharp relief giving his face a hard, sinister look. Turned away from me, Sean watched the hallway with an eager ferocity that made me wonder if I’d ever really known him.
He was reputed to be one of the best Primani of all time…and he’d earned that reputation by sheer tactical skill and overwhelming brutality in a fight. It wasn’t in his nature to show mercy and he would annihilate the demons we found tonight. The set of his jaw and the rage in his eyes promised a vicious death for anyone on the wrong side of our mission.
Taking a minute to reach out with my mind, I raised a finger to tell Dec to wait a minute. It was creepy and dark, but there was no danger here. And yet, something tickled at the far edges of my intuition and I knew someone, or something, was waiting for us. The feeling of impending doom hung in the air like a noxious cloud of steam.
Fear curled in my belly like poison.
We were going to lose someone.
Nudging Dec’s arm to get his attention, I said simply, “This is going to be bad, Dec.” Impulsively, I hugged him and whispered fiercely, “I love you! Please be careful!”
Squeezing me hard enough to crack a rib, he whispered against my hair, “I will, sweetheart. We still have things to do, you and I.” Then he released me and straightened towards Killian who watched us with thinly-veiled patience.
“Let’s go. It’s this way.” We moved purposely into another hallway.
Killian slowed long enough to reach a hand back to me. I touched his wrist in answer. Yes, I’m here and I’ll be ready. His eyes caught mine in a glance, conveying the words he’d said to me on so many missions…careful and smart--his parting words for us every time we went out without him. My heart sped up as I digested the words and took notice of our surroundings. This hallway was lined with crumbling brick walls and my stomach churned. The walls gradually became tunnels broken up by occasional metal doors. I knew this place.
One of these doors was witness to my darkest nightmares.
Keep moving. Don’t dwell on this place It has no power over you, Killian’s voice whispered sharply.
Hundreds of scurrying feet sent shivers climbing up my neck and I choked on a scream when a heavy little body ran across my foot. I stopped abruptly and Sean ran into me with a grunt of surprise.
“Rats,” I offered under my breath and kept moving lest it come back to taste me.
We’d gone about a hundred yards farther when a wave of déjà vu washed over me. I froze next to a door. This door wasn’t padlocked and had been used recently. The dust was disturbed around the door handle and there were footprints jumbled around in front of it. Cold sweat crawled between my shoulders and I nearly bolted in a sprint, but Sean stopped right behind me and held onto my arm. This was the room. High-pitched shrieks echoed from inside and Killian swore softly in front of me.
The sound of booted feet on metal startled us into action. Killian took off in a sprint towards a tunnel to the right. We just cleared the corner when several men came out of the room into the tunnel where we’d just been standing. Their laughter echoed eerily as they stood outside the room smoking. From their tone, they were flunkies. One of them sounded vaguely familiar to me though. Another scream undulated shrilly from the open door and Dec dug his fingers into my arm.
“Not human; not our problem,” Killian’s harsh whisper broke through the horrific scenes running through my brain.
Not human…demon? Reanimated corpse?
The eye of the blade burned hotter the deeper we moved into the tunnels and Killian’s entire expression changed again. Gone was my lover, my friend, my Primani. The high priest was back and in complete control now. Moving with utter silence, he stalked his prey with single-minded purpose.
Sgaine Dutre must be close.
When we turned to the right, the tunnels abruptly forked into three directions. We stopped to see which way he wanted us to go. In that voice that brooked no argument, he told us to wait. He went to the left and vanished. Right after he left, Dec perked up, his face lit with excitement, eyes gleaming in his face.
“Can you hear that?” He pointed at a pipe in the wall. The mortar was decayed and crumbling around it leaving a gap that seemed black as night to me.
Straining my ears but hearing nothing above the pounding of my heart and Sean’s breathing behind me, I shrugged negatively.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” he promised, bolting down the other tunnel and vanishing around a bend in the dark.
The sense of foreboding grew stronger and I rubbed my arms to hold myself together. “I guess i
t’s just you and me…” I murmured to Sean who was listening to something I couldn’t hear.
The darkness was getting oppressive as if the entire city was about to cave in on me. I tried to ignore the small space, the heavy air, the solid darkness. It was a good thing I wasn’t alone. I’d really be freaking out.
“Stay here for a minute. I’ll be right back.” He vanished without letting me argue.
Stunned by this turn of events, I pressed back against the wall and cursed all three of them. What the hell were they doing? Just when I was nearly hyperventilating with anxiety, Sean reappeared from the tunnel darkness.
“Where did you go? Are you crazy?”
Shrugging arrogantly, he replied smoothly, “I had to check something. I was only away a few minutes. I thought you were a big girl now?” He eyed me with a challenge.
Gritting my teeth, I muttered, “Never mind.”
Walking back into the darkness, he called over his shoulder, “Come with me. We’re going to meet Killian.”
The silence was broken by dripping water that must be the East River. We were in an unfinished line of the subway that went from Lower Manhattan to Brooklyn. The river was on top of us right now…suddenly the rats didn’t seem so bad. About 50 yards into the tunnel, my flashlight went out. The darkness was absolute. Disoriented by the sudden loss of light, I bounced into the wall and scraped my elbow. Hissing with pain, I stopped and dabbed at the raw skin. Sean halted in front of me. I couldn’t see him but I sensed his presence. In half a heartbeat, he was standing very close to me with one hand possessively wrapped around my arm.
Invisible in the black void, he purred in my ear, “Are you afraid?” Slowly, he rubbed his palm along my shivering skin leaving a trail of heat behind.
“What the hell are you doing?” I stepped back only to find the brick wall.
Before I could say anything else, his mouth was on mine in a demanding kiss that bruised my lips and ground my head against the brick. Pressing his body against me, he ran his hands under my shirt even as I struggled to push him away. I bit down on his lip and twisted my head away to break the kiss. I was nearly free when a voice thundered in the tunnel behind us.
“Mica!” Sean shouted. “No!”
The Sean holding me in his arms chuckled and blinked. His eyes changed from brilliant blue to sickly yellow and he grinned at me showing his fangs.
“Surprise!”
No! It couldn’t be! Not again!
Screaming in horror, I struggled to push him away and he pressed me to the wall with his forearm and mocked me with his eyes.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he crooned in exactly the right voice and blinked his eyes to blue again before turning to greet Sean.
Sean was frozen with shock, eyes wide and unblinking. In his hand, the silver Primani blade gleamed dully reflecting the pale fire of his eyes and illuminating the space. He didn’t say a word and he didn’t move. He stared at us with a what-the-fuck expression. His mouth worked but nothing came out.
Frantically, I called to him, “Sean!”
Shrugging, the demon said, “Well, that’s a bit anticlimactic. I was hoping for more of a fight. What did you do to him?” He dismissed Sean completely and said, “Where were we?”
Reacting out of sheer revulsion now, I twisted and turned trying to throw him off but he was too strong and I couldn’t get out of his grasp without ripping my own arms off.
Laughing cruelly, he said, “You can’t fight me, human. You caught me off guard once before, but this time I’m ready for you. I didn’t get to be this old by being stupid.”
Stalling, I said, “I killed you! How are you alive? Who are you?”
Smiling coldly, he said, “In this plane, I’m known as Dagin. Surprised?”
“Dagin!”
I was most definitely surprised. The Primani had been looking for him for years. He was a royal pain in the ass on a good day.
At the sound of this name, Sean reacted like he’d been stung and roared back to life launching himself at Dagin. Dagin turned to meet his attack with his own battle cry. The force of Sean’s attack sent them both skidding down the corridor while I watched in stunned silence. I must be having a seizure…a nightmare…something.
How was this possible?
I killed Dagin, didn’t I?
I cut him to pieces and blew him into nothing but smoke…
The entire scene was so surreal I had to keep shaking my head to make sense of it. The dark tunnel was lit up by the burning heat radiating from Sean and Dagin’s eyes. In full soldier-mode, Sean’s eyes blazed and his body put off a subtle glow as the energy raced through him. The odd bluish light cast them in creepy nightmarish shadows. With jaws clenched in fury, their cheekbones stood out in sharp relief. Except for the eyes, it was impossible to tell them apart: they both looked like something out of the bottom rings of Hell. I shrank away from them and pasted myself against a wall. The two of them moved so fast I could barely follow the fight. They blurred from one position to the next trying to rip each other to pieces.
Across the tunnel, Dagin’s snake eyes gleamed vividly in the dim light. His expression was almost bored as he flexed his fingers. Laughing softly, he shot a fireball at Sean’s head that missed by inches. Sean jumped away from it easily and fired back with an energy blast. The blast hit Dagin in the chest and he staggered back but kept to his feet. The smell of sulfur drifted in the air. Hissing loudly, he dematerialized and popped up behind Sean. Sean was ready for the trick and jabbed him hard with the silver blade. Dagin only grunted and grabbed Sean’s knife hand.
While twisting his wrist sharply, he snarled into Sean’s face, “You little pussy! You’re pathetic.”
Sean growled, “Fuck you, demon!”
Sean’s face was beet red as he struggled, but he was able to break free by head butting Dagin and smashing his nose. Dagin swore viciously and dropped his grip. Before he could regroup, Sean whirled around and blasted him again. The energy beam missed as Dagin rolled and leapt back to his feet in a crouch.
I was so intent on the fight in front of me that I missed seeing Dec rematerialize with a struggling person in his arms. Cursing profusely, he finally dropped the person who landed with an indignant squeal of anger. Dani?
“Mica, help me with her!”
“Dani?” I yelped when I heard her voice. “Oh, my God! Dani, is that you? Dec, I can’t see her; can you fix the lights?”
With an irritated sound, he sent a bolt of power to a broken emergency light near the top of the tunnel. It burst into life with a buzz.
I stumbled over to them just in time to see her get awkwardly to her feet and rub at her butt. She was dressed in an oversized cotton nightgown made for an old lady. It was filthy with grime and torn down one side exposing her pale skin. Her feet were bare and also filthy. They had to be cold too…her hair was matted and greasy. She fluffed at it now with a haughty air and scowled at us.
This was bad.
Dec’s face glowed like a tiny sun in the tunnel illuminating everything nearby. He stood preternaturally still as his eyes met mine.
“What happened, Dec?”
Between his teeth, he ground out, “She was in a cell, Mica, a freakin’ cell! No food, no water, a rag…like an animal! Worse than an animal!” He lowered his voice but fury hardened every word until they came at me like machine gun fire.
“My God.”
“Not likely!”
“Didn’t she recognize you? What’s wrong with her?”
Laughing bitterly, he snapped, “Oh, she recognized me! Exactly as James programmed her to see me…as her enemy! She tried to rip my face off when I picked her up to carry her out of there.” He tilted his face my direction so I could see the bloody gouges across one cheek from eye to jaw. They seeped blood and he wiped angrily at them. “We’ve got to get her to Zadkiel. He can help her better than we can.”
I started to reach out a sympathetic hand and he jerked away. “Don’t touch me! I don’t
want to calm down! I want to hunt these animals down and rip their guts out inch by inch.”
I was on board with that idea and it was all I could do to stay where I was. “We’ll get them. It’s going to have to wait a minute though.” I nodded towards Sean and Dec’s mouth dropped open.
Grabbing his blade, he jumped up and bolted forward.
Sean shouted, “No, Dec! This bastard’s mine!”
To punctuate his claim, he dematerialized and grabbed Dagin from behind. Dagin flipped him to the floor and threw himself on top of him, knife gleaming in the odd light.
“Shouldn’t you do something?” I demanded. This was taking too long. Sean had to be getting tired, didn’t he? Maybe they didn’t get tired?
Shaking his head firmly, he snapped, “Not yet. This is Sean’s kill. We need to see to Dani.”
Dani leaned against the wall looking defiant and angry. Approaching her cautiously, I said, “Dani, we’re going to get you out of here! Don’t worry. Everything will be okay.” I reached out to hug her.
She spit on me.
Her mouth twisted in an ugly grimace. “I’m not going anywhere with you. This is my home now.” She rubbed a loving hand over the bulge under her dirty nightgown. “James will be back soon so you should leave. He doesn’t like you, Mica.” She looked down her nose at me. “He says you’re a slut and you’ve been screwing around on Sean. Does he know that?” She pointed a finger at Sean who was struggling to keep Dagin from getting the upper hand.
Gritting my teeth and feeling my temperature rise, I tried for calm. She was obviously brainwashed. This wasn’t my Dani. I tried again. “Dani, we need to get you out of here so the baby can see a doctor. You want the baby to be safe, right?”
Snickering behind her hand, she scoffed, “I have the best doctors here. They see to my every need. Look at me! I’m perfectly healthy and so is the baby.”
Dec groaned next to me and ground his teeth together loudly. Dragging me to the side, he snapped, “We have to get her out of here! I can’t stand seeing her like this!” His voice grew more intense until he finally punched the wall sending showers of mortar around us.
The Lost Soul Trilogy (Primani Book 5) Page 68