Revelations: The Black Chalice (Revelations Series Book 1)

by Lauretta Hignett

  I lifted my head. “Why are you reluctant?”

  Nate swung his warm brown eyes toward me. “My father’s heart breaks for me. For everyone, really.” He looked down. “He is, how would you say, a downer to talk to.”

  I let out a snort. “So you don’t want to talk to your dad because he depresses you? I was expecting there was some serious grudge stuff going on. Like with you being friends with Alex.”

  “No. Our friendship does not worry him. It’s just… My father has had a lot of tragedy in his long, long life. He carries the enormous weight of the world on his back but does not feel like he can do anything to shift it.”

  “Whereas we try everything we can,” Alex growled. “That’s what Cambions do. We’re not going to sit around and cry with the suffering humans. We’re going to help.”

  “And the Nephilim help too,” Nate countered. “We are just a little more restricted in what we can do to help.”

  “Okay, guys.” I waved my hands, trying to keep them on track. The rumblings in my head were getting harder to ignore. “Didn’t you say that the assassin gang was on its way down? What’s the plan?”

  Alex flexed his big hands and threw his shoulders back. “We’re in the east pocket beyond the crystal cave,” he said in a low, growling voice. “I’m expecting them to track us here, and when they get close, I’ll stay with you while Nate attacks them. He’ll do what he can to take as many out as possible, then double back to meet us in the next cave down. We’ll keep going like that until they’re all dead.”

  My stomach gave a lurch. “So we’ll keep heading down until the danger is past?”

  “It’s the best idea. We just have to keep you away from them until they’re all dead. These caves are the perfect fighting ground for us, to keep you safe.”

  I nodded dumbly. He wasn’t wrong; open spaces would leave me vulnerable to attack on all sides. At least this way, we could make sure to face the attack head-on.

  I stood up, trying to keep my legs from shaking. “What are we waiting for, then?”

  Alex rose and listened carefully for a moment. “I can hear four of them coming this way. They’re at the crystal cavern now. They know we are taking the tunnel down toward the Devil’s Drop.” His eyes narrowed for a moment. “Two of them will be waiting in the crystal cavern in case we try to get past them.”

  Nate cracked his knuckles and sighed loudly. “I suppose I can always blame my human side for this slaughter,” he said languidly.

  “That’s the spirit, buddy.” Alex clapped a hand on his best friend’s shoulder and smiled widely. “A good human stands up for what’s right, and a good angel blames someone else for his sins.”

  “And I guess I can blame your Cambion influence for making me a man of action.”

  “Damn straight.” Alex gave him another thump on the shoulder. “Okay, Nate, I’ll take Eve down to the next cave, and we’ll meet you there.” He turned his friend to face him, giving him a hard look. “Be safe. We don’t know what’s powering these guys.”

  Nate nodded. “I will.”

  I swallowed roughly as Alex took my hand and led me to the industrial-style steel staircase that led down to the next level of caves. The tunnel was hard-packed dirt and dark rock, illuminated by soft lights set into the roof every few yards. The next cave down was a smaller version of the crystal cavern, with smaller stalactites and stalagmites spiking around the lounge room-sized space. I could hear the sound of dripping water; it sounded loud to my ears in the silence. We moved to the very end of the cave, right beside the far staircase that led down to the next level. Alex guided me to sit on a calcite mound while he crouched beside me. The mound was probably as comfortable as I was ever going to get. Without warning, my stomach gave a rumble, and I rubbed it with my hand.

  “You’re hungry.”

  “I guess I am. But my pathetic human needs aren’t really a priority right now.”

  Alex gave a rumbling laugh. “On the contrary, human needs are the only priority.” His laughter faded quickly. “When did you last eat?”

  “It was a while ago. Don’t remind me about it, and I’ll be okay.” There were bigger things to worry about than my appetite.

  He didn’t seem to be satisfied. “How are you feeling otherwise? Holding up okay?”

  “I’m okay. Tired. Hungry. Confused.”

  “Why are you confused?”

  I turned around to face him. “I just don’t understand why you’re doing this for me,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “I would think that the best route for you to get what you want would be to kill me right now.” I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant, but his sudden black glare made me shiver. “No more Black Chalice, no more apocalypse.”

  “No,” he growled softly. “It’s the opposite of what I want. And not because…” he trailed off, leaving his words hanging in the air, but swallowed roughly and continued. “It might not even help our cause. If you die, then whatever cosmic energy that consolidated itself within you—the energy that makes you the last to bear a child on earth—well, that energy might just move on to the next poor girl with a similar karma and destinic lines.”

  “Could that happen? I don’t really like the idea of someone else having to go through what I’m going through right now.”

  “There’s only one way we will ever find out.” Alex’s face was suddenly close to mine. “And I’m not going to let that happen.”

  “Alex…”

  His lips were only inches from mine, and I could feel the heat rising from his body and smell the exciting scent of chocolate and fireworks and something that was intrinsically him. He was a like a magnet, a glorious, golden lure that drew all things to him like a moth to a flame.

  But in a much, much darker way, so was I.

  I pulled back slightly, leaning away so I could see his whole face. There was no manic look in his eye; no tensed jaw or clenched teeth. His eyes were soft; his brow relaxed.

  I felt safe.

  I leaned closer again…

  “Okay guys.” Nate’s smug voice drifted over to us from the stairwell. Alex and I glanced over and saw him sauntering toward us, brushing dust off his shoulders. He carefully pushed a lock of his dark hair back into place and grinned at us. “One down, five to go.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  There was no way to count the hours down in the caves. It seemed like the deeper we went, the harder it was to figure out how much time had passed. Some moments seemed to last for days—for example when Nate took his turn to guard me while Alex went to take out another one of the assassins. Then, time seemed endless. Until one assassin got passed Alex and appeared on the steel steps above where I crouched, his eyes wild and relentless. Alex shot back to the steps like a bullet and snapped the man’s neck, and we flew, retreating farther down.

  But other moments passed as quick as milliseconds, like when Alex took me to hide in a tiny closet-sized cave off the main tunnel system, shielding the entrance with his body. Then, knowing that I was scared, he chipped away at the rock wall behind us with his fingernails, purely to distract me, revealing huge, glittering, ocean-blue kyanite crystals glowing underneath the mica.

  But those moments were rare. As time rolled on in ebbs and flows, I couldn’t ignore the hunger gnawing at my gut, or the bleeding scrapes on my knees where I had to crawl through some tight tunnels, nor the overwhelming tiredness that overcame me whenever I wasn’t frozen in fear.

  The caves were oppressive to the point of madness. And the deeper we went, the imaginary screams in my head became louder and louder, making it harder for me to focus on what was happening around me.

  But Alex and Nate were making progress. They had managed to take out almost all our pursuers, and at some point the leader, Godric, had doubled back to bring the two that waited in the crystal cavern as backup. And their hunt continued. We were five levels down, in the first of three caves that led to the start of the Devil’s Drop, and my fear and anxiety were starting to over
whelm me.

  “How long do you think we’ve been down here?” I whispered to Nate.

  “It’s been a fair few hours,” he replied. “Maybe six or seven. Don’t worry. I have a feeling that after Alex takes out this one, the last remaining one and the leader will retreat. He will protect Godric; he is the general. And they will return with reinforcements at some point. But that will give us a chance to regroup.”

  Nate leaned closer toward me, trying to give me comfort, but I was so tired that I automatically flinched away. “I’m sorry.” I looked down toward the crumbling rock ground, and my vision blurred. “I don’t know how much longer I can go on.”

  Nate fixed me with a candid and sure stare, his dark eyes warm and sincere. “Eve. If you pass out, we will carry you.”

  I couldn’t hold his stare. My eyes weren’t focusing. My head felt like it was full of cotton wool—and beyond that, I could hear the screams of the damned echoing around in my eardrums. They were getting so loud. I’d never felt so tired in all my life, yet I felt as if I was never going to sleep again.

  I clutched my head and put it between my knees. Why? Why were they screaming like this?

  “They are not screaming.” Nate sounded perplexed, and I realized I’d said my thoughts out loud. I glanced up and found him with his ears cocked to the surface, listening intently. “They were fighting, but the three of them have retreated for a moment. They have gone up two levels, back to the larger cathedral cavern. I wonder why they have done that?” Nate mused. His face darkened. “Ah. I cannot hear them as clearly; the sound echoes. They are planning their next move, but I cannot tell what it is. It is clever of them.” His eyes met mine and softened. “Alex has crept closer to the cave; he will be able to listen better than we can from down here.”

  I must have cringed, because Nate swept an arm around me. I did my best not to flinch, but my anxiety and misery overwhelmed me; it all hurt so much. I shuddered and wrenched myself out of his grasp. “Not them. Not them screaming.”

  I clutched my head again and hit myself in the ear. The slight pain distracted me from the misery a tiny bit, so I did it again. And again. “I can hear the souls,” I whispered through my clenched teeth. “I can hear the screaming.”

  There was a long moment of silence, punctuated by my blows to my own head. Then Nate knelt next to me, his hands gentle on my fists, holding them firm. “Eve. Eve, listen to me,” he said urgently. “You can hear the souls?”

  I nodded and lifted my head to meet his gaze. “Are they always in this much pain? Is this forever for them?” His face blurred, as tears in my eyes welled up and blocked my vision. I left them to spill over and run down my cheeks. His dark eyes were fathomless and filled with sympathy.

  “We cannot go any farther down,” he said to himself. “It will only get worse. It is bad enough that I have to use excess energy to block them out, but why are you being subjected to such misery?” He furrowed his brow for a moment. Suddenly he snapped his fingers. “I need to call my father now. If these cretins keep coming, we cannot afford to go any farther. The sound will drive you mad.”

  I felt like I was already mad. The tension within my body was about to reach its breaking point. My hands drifted to a sore spot on my knee where a sharp rock had sliced my skin. I poked at it, and the physical pain was a welcome distraction to the agony in my head. I wiggled one of my fingers into the cut, and stabbed at it in a random frequency. It was soon slippery with blood, and the coppery smell filled the air around me.

  “Don’t worry,” Nate whispered. His warm hands covered mine and tried to move them away, but I struggled against him, continuing poking at my wound. “I’ll draw a light circle, and keep you inside,” he said. “The sphere will create a cushion for you; it will provide us some relief from the sounds of torment.” He narrowed his eyes for a moment, his jaw tensed. “And I need to speak to my father. I don’t think we can wait.”

  He cocked his ear to the surface one last time, assuring himself that our hunters were far enough away, then he pulled a small container out of his back pocket. “We’ll have to make the circle small, I don’t have much salt,” he muttered, moving around me. He shook the container out, and I stayed curled into a ball on the hard rock floor. When he was done, he pulled out a beautiful, shining quartz cluster, light blue and sparkling, and placed it on the ground in front of me. “Close your eyes, Eve,” he said urgently. “The light might be blinding at first.”

  He took another step back and started whispering under his breath, in a liquid tongue that I didn’t recognize. His words grew faster, sliding together, like a beautiful aria reaching a crescendo. I squeezed my eyes shut. The blood red of my eyelids flashed bright orange as a light flared in front of me.

  Immediately, the voices faded out of my ears. I lifted my head, moving it slightly, testing the volume. The screams were still there, but they were fainter, almost imperceptible.

  “Is that better?”

  I sighed, my body sagging in relief. “Yes. I can still hear them, but they’re muted. I can handle this.” Experimenting, I let my eyelids crack open, and a flood of brilliant white light filled my eyes. It wasn’t harsh; it was gentle, soothing, but so very bright. I opened my eyes farther, and as they adjusted I could make out the figure of Nate standing just beyond the circle.

  He looked relieved, but also very, very tired.

  I lifted my head so I could focus on him. “Is this draining your energy?”

  “Calling the light does tire me a little,” he admitted. “Now that the circle is cast and the light channel is open, the hard part is over. I’ll give you a minute before I try and call my father. Once I call, it’s possible that someone else might try and sever the connection and break the light circle. I want to give you some time to recover.”

  “I’m glad,” I breathed out, relishing having the volume on my madness toned down. “Why do you think it’s getting worse? Are we getting closer to hell?”

  Nate shrugged carelessly. “Hell is not of this dimension. It’s not something we can get closer to, as such. We are close to it every day. There are ways of opening up channels between heaven and hell, as we’ve just done. But you can do that from anywhere on the earth. There are times of the year where the channels are opened easier… those are the times that souls tend to escape and wreck a bit of havoc.”

  “Samhain?”

  He smiled at me. “Exactly. The wheel of the earth turns, and nature’s energy coalesces to a point. Some of the more persistent souls can push through.”

  “So it’s more about the seasons than the locations?”

  “Yes. To be honest,” he sighed out, “I don’t know why we’re hearing the screams clearer here. Alex and I have been puzzling over it for days.”

  I thought for a moment, patting the cut on my knee so the blood would dry quicker. I could smell it so clearly—that new penny smell that burned a little in my nose. “Nate, what about ley-lines?” I asked. “They’re energy lines, and they’re a location thing rather than a season thing.”

  “They are.”

  “And I know that some cathedrals were built on sacred spots, in places where ley-lines intersect.”

  “Yes. People have searched for centuries for the best locations to get closer to God, closer to where they think heaven is. And yes, they’ve built their temples and churches on those spots that have a higher vibration. But the buildup of energy is usually so subtle that it is mostly negligible.”

  “But they’re looking for places of lightness; a connection to the divine. Has anyone gone searching for the opposite?”

  Nate looked thoughtful. “I’m sure there are Satanists that would have looked into it at some point in history. They’re usually good at science, those guys.”

  “So it’s feasible that some negative energy has coalesced here, in the darkest depths of the Devil’s Drop?”

  He nodded again.

  “And no one would have noticed, because no one has explored down here?” I warmed to
my theory. “It’s too difficult to get down. And if you do manage to get down, the subtle screaming of the lost souls will drive you mad.”

  “Yes. I guess it is possible,” he conceded.

  “So,” I said. “The Devil’s Drop… it’s a Hellmouth.”

  “A what?”

  “A Hellmouth. Where the gates of hell will open and the souls come pouring out.”

  Nate pursed his lips. “Hell has no gates.”

  I stuck my chin up. “You know what I mean. It’s entirely possible. It makes sense, with how I’m going crazy from hearing the screams, and the chills. Even the goddamn name spells it out. The Devil’s Drop.”

  “This is not an episode of ‘Buffy,’ Eve,” he said dryly.

  I tilted my head to one side. “It’s not nearly as funny as an episode of ‘Buffy,’ that’s for sure.”

  “Okay,” Nate’s mouth was curling up very slightly in the corner. “You’ve clearly already gone mad, so I’m going to call my father.” He quickly grew serious again. “And see if we can get some answers. We cannot stay here.”

  My skin prickled at the idea of getting out of this circle, and of the screams becoming louder again. It really was torture. I knew that I’d have to move out of the circle eventually—either to flee downward, away from the maniacs that were trying to kill me, or, at best, to get back to the upper levels once they’d been dispatched. I silently prayed it would be the latter.

  Nate took a moment to settle, grounding himself. He closed his eyes and raised his hands, and began to call out in the strange, fluid language. His voice was low and smooth, and I felt the vibration of it rumble through my chest.

  The ground beneath me trembled very slightly. My breath felt harsh in my chest. But nothing changed. The light didn’t dim, and I was still protected.

  “Nothing?” I asked him.

  One of his eyebrows quirked slightly. “No. I will try again.” He centred himself again, and this time, to my surprise, he spoke in English.

  “I summon forth my blood, the Angel Malach on high; your son calls you to be present in this circle, for the hour is long and the need is great.”