by Ryals, R. K.
There are images in my head now. I can almost see Gibson's eyes on me in the tunnel. "You're trying my patience, Reinhardt," Gibson says, his eyes skimming over me before moving down a line of gargoyle trainees. "Remember this, you will be skilled, loyal, and deferential when I finish with you. No matter how rough you are. Rough can be smoothed, fixed," Gibson lectures.
The memory makes my jaw tighten, and I suddenly picture a boxing ring with the gargoyles in one corner and the hybrids in the other. Gibson is wrong. Rough hurts. It's a fight to maintain who you are when everyone else wants to change you. Rough keeps the hybrids alive, numb, strong. Rough, I understand.
My gaze moves to Emma again. I think, subconsciously, I saw her as weak once. I saw her as someone I wanted to rescue, save. It gave me a reason to be the hybrids' champion. It gave me a reason to be different, to break away. But, in the end, she wasn't the one saved. She was a reason for me to run, a reason to escape perfection. I am the king of running away, of turning away from commitment. Maybe it started with my father's death. Maybe it started because I didn't want my rough edges smoothed away.
I reach out without thinking, my hand landing softly against the small of Emma's back. I can feel her look up at me, startled maybe, but I don't meet her gaze. I look forward instead, and I leave my hand there, a support, a gesture that admits things I can't say here. I won't lose her. I won't run.
"It's a refreshing feeling, isn't it?" a voice says suddenly.
It is a deep voice, hoarse, and it echoes throughout the chamber, the question repeating itself several times before fading away. We all pause, taking defensive stances, our eyes moving urgently around us. Only Gwenyth doesn't seem afraid, her eyes glassy, her posture stiff, angry.
"Reconciliation," the voice continues. "It's such a good feeling."
"Who are you?" Bruno asks, his voice sharp.
Unlike Envy, there is no chuckle, no sign of amusement, only the click, click, clicking sound of claws against stone. From the shadows, a massive wolf appears, his fur gray and black with small white patches. It's an odd color, but it suits the beast. He is tall, his wolf eyes narrow and red. When he sits back on his haunches, his snout is level with my head. But it's his tail that catches my attention. The tail is a serpent, a viper that hisses and spits angrily. We all watch it warily.
"I'm a friend, and I'm an enemy," the wolf says, his eyes roving over our faces.
His appearance is familiar to me, and I search my brain for the images I'd had to memorize in training. This was a Demon, I had no doubt, but which one?
"You are haunted by your choices, Gargoyle. This labyrinth is a good place to release your Demons."
My head snaps up, my narrowed eyes meeting the wolf's gaze.
"Puns are never fun, Wolf. You are a friend and an enemy, a Demon telling me to release my demons. Cute. Got any other vague comments worth sharing? We're all so astounded by your wit."
The wolf growls, his fur standing straight up on his back, his tail slithering angrily.
"You dare mock me, Gargoyle. Me, a Marquis of Hell?"
Even in his anger, the wolf's voice stays calm, low, threatening. A Marquis?
"What do you want from us?" Bruno asks, and the wolf turns away from me, his eerie eyes landing on Bruno.
"You are an interesting one, Bruno Riley. Very little internal conflict. You want to prove yourself, and you blame yourself for the death of the little redhead."
Gwenyth gasps, her intake of breath too sharp, ragged. Bruno takes a step forward.
"Is this part of this hellhole? Trap us, kill us, and then send us a twisted version of a therapist."
The wolf cocks his head.
"You think I don't feel your internal conflicts?" the wolf asks. "There are so many unresolved problems among your group."
"Our problems," I point out. Not his.
The wolf doesn't flinch.
"Unresolved issues kill. You truly expect to survive this place with demons over your heads? Pun intended"
My hand is still at Emma's back, and I clench my free one. The fist is pointless, but it makes me feel stronger, better.
"What do you care? Isn't death the point here?"
The wolf's head swings between myself and Bruno.
"Not the leader but still the leader. You all simply amaze me," he murmurs before pushing himself to his feet, his large paws pacing before us. "You're right. I don't care. Your death means nothing to me. But you call to me, and my power revels in your tension."
The wolf moves down the line, stopping directly in front of Bruno and Lyre before sitting again.
"You are a beauty like your mother," he says to Lyre. She stiffens. "And such hatred you harbor. Hatred born from pain."
The wolf's red eyes swing my way.
"Seems you're more tied to this group than you should be considering your race, Gargoyle. Such a pitiable thing, sharing a dalliance with a she-Demon of Pleiades' line. They hold grudges, you know."
I can feel the hybrids staring at me, and I grit my teeth. Only Emma is aware of my past with the raven-haired Demon. The news is shocking to the others.
I hear Lyre spit at the wolf, but he doesn't move. The creature's calm demeanor is eerie, frightening, interesting.
"Pleiades would be so ashamed," the wolf replies. "You're powers to entice and control are weaker than your mothers."
Emma begins to stir against my hand, but I clench her shirt in my palm. This is my fight, my past. Lyre and I have been putting this off for entirely too long.
"The hybrid isn't weak. Her anger is my fault," I say loudly, my voice calm despite the resentment I'm feeling. The other hybrids look confused, suspicious.
"What's this about?" Bruno asks, his tone firm.
The wolf moves away from Lyre, his large body lumbering in my direction.
"So sleeping with Pleiades' daughter was a mistake? Interesting."
There are gasps from everyone except Emma and a shell-shocked Gwenyth. This is unfair, being faced with my indiscretions when Gwenyth has just lost a member of her family. It makes me angry.
"My mistake, not hers," I say.
Lyre breaks away from the group, her eyes on me as she walks toward the wolf. The viper on the floor doesn't seem to bother her, and I wonder if it's because of her mother's many forms.
"Your mistake?" she asks. "Your mistake."
I close my eyes briefly, my anger ebbing away.
"Yes, Lyre. I thought of you as a mistake. I won't lie and tell you I saw our time together as anything more than that."
Lyre inhales, and I feel Emma tense against my hand. I let my palm fall away from her shirt. Losing her is a definite possibility. There are too many obstacles between us, most of them mine. I look at Lyre. Her hand is raised, and I know she wants to slap me.
"I was a gargoyle who'd discovered I'd been with a Demon. It wasn't your fault, Lyre. Being who you are is not your fault. Being what I am ruled me, made our time together into something disgraceful."
Lyre pauses and her hand falls.
"And then you brought me to the attention of the Acropolis. That's worse than having a guy not call the next day, Reinhardt. It's way worse."
I look away. "I can honestly say I didn't know what was happening at the Acropolis. I thought I was helping you."
She snorts."It was a way to relieve your conscience, to make having been with me bearable, right?"
I nod because I won't lie.
"I don't regret my past, Lyre. I refuse to regret my past. It has shaped me. But my feelings about it have changed," I say. "Now, I don't see you as a mistake. I see what I did to you afterwards as the mistake. I can't change it now."
Lyre is quiet a moment, her eyes moving from me to the wolf before looking at the floor. Most would consider the gesture one of embarrassment, but I know Lyre better than that. She doesn't consider her past a mistake. She revels in it, sees it as something to be proud of. And, I have to admit, if I was the daughter of Pleiades, I would too. There are times wh
en pleasing the ones we love mean the world to us.
Bruno leans my way.
"You were with Lyre, and you didn't lose your sanity?" he asks.
Pleiades entices men, revels in jealous emotions, in deception. Being with the she-Demon and her descendants has disastrous effects on men. I shrug because I'm done with the topic and because I've shared enough.
The wolf exhales and smoke circles out of his nostrils.
"The power of reconciliation. It's amazing really," the wolf says. His eyes move down the line, and the hybrids tense.
"Such power." His gaze lands on Deidra, and she slumps. "Bullied and disliked. You fear people now. Not life. People. What a shame, Little One. Imps, if they would learn to direct the penchant for mischief they have, could be quite a force to be reckoned with. You're a Demon, girl. Let the bullying strengthen you."
"And you," the wolf says, his snout pointed at Fiona. "You obsess too much, about Hell, about your mother, about your decisions. Don't you think that slows you down? Instincts serve us well. Use them."
"Who are you," Bruno asks, but the wolf still ignores him, his gaze on Gray and Gwenyth. "You impress me, son of Iudal. There isn't much to you, but you are calm, confident. Disrespectful, yes, but wary. You are stronger than you appear, but you hide within the shadows. You were abused once, I think. By your father, maybe?"
Gray doesn't meet the wolf's gaze. His eyes stay locked on the top of Gwenyth's head, her red hair just level with his chest where she slumps.
"You and your sister are strong, daughter of Onoskelis. It doesn't seem so now, but you will move on. You will get past her death," the wolf mumbles before turning, his body graceful as he moves toward me again. This time, however, he stops in front of Emma.
"You confound me the most, Hybrid. So many emotions and most of them not your own. But the ones that belong to you are powerful, strong. Fearless."
Emma's head straightens on the last word, her eyes on the wolf.
"Fear is power," she says.
The wolf laughs. It is the first time he has shown amusement, and the laugh becomes a howl, an eerie drawn out howl.
"Touché. Just remember your greatest power comes from your ability to care."
Emma's forehead creases.
"Not from emotion?" she asks.
The wolf stares at her. "Feeling emotions is an advantage but it's what you get from those emotions that gives you power. How you feel is the power."
Emma stares. Until this moment, we had always assumed her powers came from feeding off other people's emotions, but the wolf is saying the power comes from her own emotions, from the way she feels about the feelings she absorbs.
"Who are you," Bruno insists.
The wolf bares his teeth before sitting back and lifting his two front paws off of the ground. The cavern is suddenly full of swirling wind, lashing at us as it surrounds the beast, and then the wolf is gone, replaced by a tall brown-haired man, his red eyes prominent in his tanned face. He wears a white dress shirt tucked into a pair of black trousers. He bows, the move both condescending and reverent. He is a contradiction.
"The Marquis Amon, at your service. Your friend. Your enemy," he says before disappearing abruptly. Only his voice remains in the cavern, a haunting, lilting sound.
"Heads up," it warns.
Chapter 21
Emma
There is no time to think about the wolf's assessment, this mysterious Marquis of Hell, as we all look up just in time to see the spiked gate that falls from the air above us.
Conor and Bruno begin shoving us forward, their movements a blur as we are slung to the floor. The gate slams down, smoothly blending with the stone and barely missing us. The edge of Conor's jeans are caught by the iron, but he rips it easily and backs away.
"What the hell was that? A distraction so some iron spikes could kill us?" Bruno shouts, his anger at the wolf obvious.
No one answers him. There's a warning instead from Deidra whose eyes are on the cavern ceiling, her eyes wide. No one hesitates, and we move as Gray drags Gwenyth with him. Another gate falls where we stood only seconds before.
We are all staring upward now, and we dive as another gate moves downward. I tug on Ace, pulling his large head along behind me. He's slower than the average Demon, and I'm worried the gates will catch him. He takes up too much space.
"Come on, Boy!" I urge as another gate falls, narrowly missing Ace's tail. I can feel the breeze the pointed, iron bars make on my face as they slide into the stone.
"He's slowing you down, Emma!" Fiona cries out, but I stay with Ace anyway.
Conor drops behind and places a hand on Ace's head. I expect the drex to shake him off, but he doesn't. He snorts instead, his eyes rolling as yet another gate falls and nicks his skin.
"Em, they're coming faster," Conor says urgently.
I am practically dragging Ace now. He's too heavy and large for me to have much of an impact, but I pull anyway. I send pleading messages to Ace, my mind a whir of dangerous images. The drex roars and picks up the pace, and I stumble as I keep my hand on his head. Conor runs alongside us.
Another gate falls.
Ace roars, and then pauses.
I stop. "Come on, Boy!!! Please move!"
Ace slings his head back and forth, the whites of his eyes obvious, and I realize the gate has landed on his tail, effectively pinning him to the cavern floor.
I scream even as Conor tugs on my arm.
"Emma!"
I know what he's asking me to do, but I pull away.
"No!"
Ace is a nuisance to the rest of the group. I know that, but to me he's become a support, a loyal friend. It's my fault he's here. I brought him.
I wrap my arms around Ace's neck.
"Pull away, Boy! Pull away!"
The drex tugs, but the meatiest part of his tail is caught and it's useless.
"Emma!" Conor shouts, but I don't hear him. His words are faint, like echoes in my ears. I have a brief moment of clarity where I wonder if this is what Gwenyth feels like, like she's in a bubble, her surroundings muted. There is only me and Ace.
I lean down and kiss his rubbery head, tears falling over my cheeks. I know he can't get loose, and my heart breaks.
"It's going to be okay," I tell him.
The words calm him, but I know he realizes it's not alright by the way his eyes move. The pain must be unbearable. I send calming thoughts his way, and he relaxes.
Distantly, I hear a gate whooshing downward, but I don't move. A body slams against me, pinning me to the side of the cavern wall, his body in front of mine. His hand grips my chin, forcing it against his chest.
"Don't look," Conor says, his eyes on mine.
But I already know what he's trying to hide. The shock of Ace's death is startling. I have never been bound to anything before Ace. I hadn't realized how connected the two of us really were until a small part of my brain suddenly seems to black out almost as if I were holding a candle and someone asked me to douse the flame. Nothing. A strange, gaping hole, and I inhale sharply.
I can't breathe.
There is a crushing weight on my chest. I wheeze even as Conor lifts me before moving again. Another gate falls. Voices yell. The other hybrids, but I barely recognize them. They are simply background noise.
"Emma, breathe!"
Conor is shaking me now, but I barely feel it. There are black circles dancing in front of my eyes, and I am blessedly lightheaded.
"Emma! Dammit!" Conor yells. "Do any of you know anything about bonds?"
I feel nothing, even as another pair of hands settle against my face.
"Breathe, Emma. Let him go. His spirit needs to go."
It's Gwenyth's voice. She is choked up, the words broken up by sobs, and I know my tears are soaking her hands. She leans in close as I fight to breathe.
"Twin Demons are born naturally bonded. It is simply a matter of letting the ones you love go."
A sob escapes me as I feel a heaviness
I wasn't aware of begin to lift from my chest. Ace's spirit.
My eyes meet Gwenyth's, and I'm suddenly aware of how strong she really is. She may appear shell shocked, her grief a stark image of despair, but she had been strong enough to let go of her sister. The rest of us had not known their bond was as deep as she's claiming it was now.
"Breathe, Emma," she says, and I draw in a deep breath, my hand coming to rest against hers. She smiles gently, her eyes sad and dead.
"We've gotta try," I manage, my voice strained from the grief that grips it. I still struggle somewhat to breathe, but the effort is from sorrow not from Ace's spirit.
Gwenyth moves away, her body edging along the cavern wall as she holds onto the stone for support. She is replaced by Conor. He touches my face, my arms, my waist. It seems to reassure him.
"Can you stand?" he asks.
I nod because I'm not sure I can speak.
He braces me with his arms as I push myself off of the floor, his body strategically placed between me and the fallen gates beyond.
"Seeing makes it worse," he whispers, and I wonder about the deaths he's seen, the emotional trauma he's had to endure in the past.
"We need to move."
I nod again, trying unsuccessfully to hide the sob that escapes, choking me.
Conor wraps his arms around me briefly, his chin on top of my head.
"We'll make it right," he says fiercely. "They didn't die for nothing."
I have to believe him because not believing him hurts too much, and I let my hand find his as we move apart. I grip it, and he squeezes hard, his jaw tightening with emotion.
"We'll make it right," I repeat.
The rest of the hybrids are silent, their eyes respectfully on the tunnel ahead. Or maybe the sight of the drex is even more tragic than I dare imagine. Tears burn my eyelids as Conor urges me forward. The labyrinth is nothing more than a gaping black mouth devouring everything about us that makes us strong. How much more can we bear to lose?
Chapter 22
Conor