“I do.” He nodded slowly. Then he angled his head toward the house. “Sina will never understand. Oh, she gets that you’re hurting. But she made him a promise. She told him she’d take care of you. You’re still a child in her eyes.”
“I know.” Wrapping my arms around myself, I fought a chill. It might have been guilt. Or even a bit of grief over the life I was likely about to throw away. “I love him, Rip. I’ll never, ever love another. My one chance is this…either I save him, or I die in the trying.”
He passed a hand down my back. “You won’t go alone.”
“You can’t go. You and Greta are needed here. There are too few of us left.”
“It won’t be one of us. There’s…” He grimaced. “There’s another. And he’s actually ideal for the task.”
We said nothing else.
Later, back at the house, Greta gave me a grim look and I expect she knew what Rip and I had discussed. Even Luc seemed unusually solemn.
Only Sina seemed to carry on as normal, talking about a job she had in mind for me, if I felt up to it.
“Of course, if you need more time, I understand,” she told me, smiling in what was probably a motherly way for her. It was a pretty smile, even.
It just wasn’t…her.
Sina wasn’t the maternal type.
She wasn’t the comforting type.
But I said nothing as she gave me an awkward hug and moved past me to go down the hall that led toward the kitchen. A moment later, the big dog that followed Luc everywhere trailed behind her.
I might have thought it odd, but Luc came to sit with me.
A second later, he touched my hand.
“Don’t speak.”
I jerked my head up.
He’d already moved his hand. “I’m going to go do some drills. Would you like to join me?”
“Sure.”
I fell in step with him, oddly disturbed by the quiet whisper that had echoed inside my skull. I’d been told I had powerful shields for somebody as young as me. Will had been the one to tell me and he’d been the one to help me perfect them. It took somebody pretty fricking strong to push through them.
Luc opened a door and we padded quietly down the stairs.
“We need to talk. Well, I’ll talk,” came the voice again. “You listen, but say nothing aloud. Sina will hear.”
I fought not to react, not to nod.
I looked around and found myself in the middle of a training facility. It looked like almost any other I’d ever seen. But there were no mirrors. I guess a blind man wouldn’t need them, but maybe his partners…?
I shrugged it off.
“Hands or weapons?” he asked.
I scowled. He really wanted to train? How was I going to do this with somebody inside my head?
“You know, you’re my least favorite sparring partner.” I made a face at him. He couldn’t see it, but it made me feel better. Sparring with Luc always left me battered.
“I’ve heard you say that to Rip as well, cher.” He gave me a brilliant grin. “I will not hurt you too badly. You’re still young, after all. Hands or weapons.”
I sighed. “Hands.” If I asked for weapons, he’d just disarm me and end up using whatever weapon I chose on me anyway.
To his credit, he waited until he had me pinned down before he tried to talk to me. I guess he knew I wasn’t going to be able to carry on a conversation and fight him at the same time. I doubted he’d have that problem, but as he’d said, I was still young. With my face in the mat and his knee in my spine, I tried to focus on his words and not the burning pain in my arm and shoulder—particularly the shoulder joint.
“You plan to go after Will.”
The words spoken into my head were flat and direct, a statement, not a question.
I couldn’t nod. My ability to communicate mind to mind was rough at best, but I doubted I needed to be highly skilled, not if Luc was on the receiving end.
I simply thought, “Yes.”
The pressure on my arm eased and I lay there for a moment, waiting for the pain to fade. It got worse before it got better so I assumed he’d torn something. I shot him a dirty look as he sat next to me. “You’re getting better,” he said, looking pleased.
“Yay.” Slowly, I rolled upright. A hot wash of fire raced down my arm and I gasped, using my left hand to lift my wrist so I could cradle it. “Next time? Try to keep in mind that there’s no reason to nearly dislocate it.”
He shrugged. “The demons you fight aren’t going to take it easy on you, Mandy. Why should I?” Then he looked at me. His eyes were lovely, the purest of blues. Sightless as they may be, Luc saw very deep into a person. “If you go alone, you’re likely to die within moments of stepping through the portal. You’ve never imagined anything like the netherplains.”
Drawing my knee up, I rested my head on it. “I won’t go alone.”
I didn’t wait for him to ask.
“Rip says he has somebody in mind. I didn’t ask who. Hopefully, he’s already close.”
There was a momentary silence and then he murmured, “Rob.”
I shot him a look. “Rob?”
Luc rose to his feet, the gesture graceful and easy. He had a disgusted sneer on his face. Hands on his hips, he stood there, looking as aggravated as I’d ever seen him. Finally, he turned back to me and held out a hand. Although I didn’t need it, I accepted it. Many of the men were from an age when it had been drilled into them to offer assistance to a female—chivalry wasn’t dead. It just lived and breathed inside men who lived on the outskirts of society. Once I was on my feet, he let go and turned away, moving to the far side of the room.
“You’ve met Rob. Briefly. He’s on his way here. There was an…altercation between him and Jacob. Sina had to split them up. She’s bringing him here so she can address the matter.”
Abruptly, I knew who he was talking about.
Rob.
“No fucking way,” I said, forgetting I wasn’t supposed to be talking. “That man is insane.”
Luc turned to me. One brow arched. “Yes. He’s also spent a considerable amount of time in the netherplains. If anybody can keep you alive, it’s him. You don’t have a choice, Mandy. It’s this…or you will not leave here.”
I went to tell him that there was no way he could stop me.
But I heard the door at the top of the stairs open and a cool wash of air drifted over my skin.
Dread curled through me and I squeezed my eyes shut.
Sina’s approach was silent.
Luc said nothing and there was no flicker of emotion on his too-perfect face.
If he was at all concerned by her sudden appearance, he didn’t show it.
If he wasn’t bothered by her presence, that wasn’t a problem.
I had more than enough concern (FYI, I was fucking freaked out) for both of us.
Sina came around to stand between us and her dark eyes slid from him to me, then made the circuit a second time. When her gaze came to rest on me the final time, I angled my chin up.
When in doubt, brazen your way out.
That’s my motto.
“Yeah?” I asked, throwing as much attitude in the word as I could. I had a lot of attitude.
“Just what is going on down here?” she asked, her voice soft.
“Sparring.” I rotated my shoulder for effect—then winced as one final twinge rippled through it. I rubbed it with my left hand and shot Luc a dirty look.
His dog, a big wolf-looking creature, padded up just then and pressed against his leg. The dog’s name was Krell and he wasn’t just a dog. I wouldn’t call the dog one of us, but it was more than obvious he’d been gifted with an intelligence that just wasn’t found in the typical dog. He was also old. Not that he acted it, but the dog hadn’t aged a day in all the years I’d known him and he should be showing some signs of slowing down. I’d asked Will about Krell once and I’d been told there was a special bond between Luc and his dogs.
I guess he
’d had more than one.
While Luc stroked his dog’s head, I held Sina’s gaze.
“Perhaps you sparred, but that isn’t what is going on,” Sina said, her eyes narrowed.
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
She took a step toward me. “I suggest you try the truth, Mandy. Before I drag it out of you.”
“Sina.” Luc took a step forward.
“Don’t, Luc,” she said, her tone cold.
Rocking back on the balls of my feet, I slanted a look at Sina before shifting it to Luc. I pretended to ponder something and then shrugged. “He’s trying to do the same thing you are. Everybody wants poor Mandy to feel better. Everybody wants poor Mandy to understand that Will made a noble sacrifice.” Some of the misery and rage I felt spilled out of me. “Well, guess what, Sina…poor Mandy wants all of you to shove it up your ass!”
The words ripped out of me in a torrent and the tears, tears I rarely let fall, spill free.
I stormed past her and tore up the stairs.
Behind me, I heard Sina call my name.
But Luc called hers and I heard them arguing.
Manipulative?
Yes, it was.
But Luc wasn’t wrong.
Sina would find a way to lock me away somewhere, for my own good. She’d do it out of loyalty to Will, no doubt, and never mind the fact that I was slowly dying inside.
I wasn’t going to sit around anymore.
I wasn’t going to just wither away.
Finally, I had a course of action and I was taking it.
Chapter Five
He remembered blue sky.
His life was so long, the eternity he’d spent here couldn’t wipe out the memories.
Not yet.
But the time would come when he would look up at the endless stretch of gray and try to recall a time when he’d last seen anything but the dismal hues overhead. He would try and he would fail. He knew, because he’d been in this hell before. It had been eons ago—or so some would think—but it felt like yesterday.
Some memories fade, but when a man has walked through a specific sort of hell, he never forgets.
The sky, though, fresh air, the feel of a soft spring rain…those things can eventually be forgotten. For now, he stood at the mouth of the cave and remembered.
The memory he clung to now was of watching her as she moved through the snow. She’d chosen a crossbow as her preferred weapon—they all had them after all—and she was tackling the obstacle course he’d built for her.
The backdrop of winter-bare trees and the cerulean sky, the snow dusting up around her as she demolished the obstacles like they were little more than child’s toys. And when she’d finished, she’d turned to look at him with a wild grin on her face.
“Again,” she had demanded.
He’d simply nodded and rebuilt the obstacle course.
What he’d wanted, more than anything, was to cross to her and touch her.
Just…touch.
It didn’t have to be anything intimate, although to a man who hadn’t known an intimate touch in far too many lifetimes, the barest glance of her hand against his was almost painful.
He wanted to curl the long, midnight silk of her hair around his hands.
He wanted to gather it in his fists and see if the weight of it was as heavy as it seemed.
He wanted to stroke his hands down her arms and learn the muscles that he had grown so familiar with. If he had been an artist, he could have drawn her in his sleep. But he would never do her justice.
He simply…wanted.
With her, he’d wanted everything.
In the end, he’d had a single kiss and the knowledge that he’d hurt her, just as he’d hurt too many people in his long, long lifetime.
He closed his eyes and pulled her face to mind, wondered if she’d come to him.
There were times when he thought he might be going mad, already. All it took was a simple thought and he could bring her to him. It didn’t happen every time, no. But it had happened, and often enough that he knew something was amiss. And yes, it was likely his sanity.
He didn’t care.
If he went crazy here, there was nobody to suffer for it.
Well, except demons, and their suffering was his victory.
She didn’t come to him, though, and after a moment, he opened his eyes and studied the terrain, looked for some sign that he needed to move again. Off in the distance, lightning split the sky and the ever-present scent of ozone strengthened.
He shoved off the rough wall formed by the cave and studied the area where the lightning had appeared.
It didn’t come again though.
He had time to rest, then.
Precious little, but he’d learned long ago to make do with what little he had.
He turned to retreat back into the cave, but before he’d taken a step, he stilled.
Eerie awareness rippled over him and he turned his head just the slightest, listening.
There was no sound, no warning.
He lunged to the left and tucked his body, coming up in a crouch, his blade flashing in the dim light as he faced off with the…
Wraith.
Straightening, he curled his lip.
“Crow.”
The wraith was impossibly big, impossibly tall. He angled his head slightly, calling to mind the bird from which he’d chosen his most recent name. He’d had several of them.
“You’re still alive,” Crow murmured.
“Sadly, it would seem so.” He turned away, sheathing his blade as he went.
There was a lingering pause and then Crow spoke again. “You’ve closed most of the tears. But many have escaped. Your Grimm falter. Soon, they will fail.”
The man who had been called Will stopped. He stared at the stone in front of him, unwilling to look back for fear of the emotion that might have shown through. How long had it been since he’d come into this hell? He didn’t know. Time lost all meaning here. He knew that before he’d come here he would have shown no emotion. But the endless struggle, the days, months…years??? All of it with little rest, one long unending battle and it had chiseled him. There was nothing extra left. He was steel, strength…and grief.
He couldn’t let Crow see it. If it was the strength and the steel, it wouldn’t bother him, but the grief?
No.
“You heard my words,” Crow said.
“Yes, I heard.” He started to walk.
“Will.”
He spun, blade lifted. It came to rest at Crow’s throat. Black eyes flickered. “You cannot kill me with that…toy,” the wraith said.
“No. But I can make you hurt.” His eyes flashed. “I’ve a task set before me. It doesn’t involve you. So leave.”
“They are faltering.”
“Why does that concern you!” he bellowed.
“I am curious why you seem to think it doesn’t concern you, Will.”
“Do not call me that.” The words came out in a hard growl. “That part of me was left behind. That life is over.”
Crow’s lids flickered.
“Curious…” His black eyes were avid. “You are feeling regret. Have you ever known that emotion, boy?”
With a curl of his lip, he turned his back on Crow. “Leave, wraith. I’m done with you.”
He thought perhaps the sorry bastard would finally listen. But just as Will reached the small area he used for resting, the wraith spoke yet again. “All this time and you never knew regret. Until now.”
He was wrong. Will had known regret. He’d known a great deal of it. But he wasn’t going to discuss his feelings with Crow. Or anybody else.
“She still mourns you…Will.”
“Don’t call me that.”
He focused on the name instead of the woman Crow spoke of.
It was easier.
“Very well. If you have no concern or care for her, then perhaps I’ll…have a care.”
He spun around, fury lightin
g inside him.
But the wraith was gone in a gathering cloud of black.
The shout of rage echoed through the cave.
* * * * *
Rob was, as some were fond of saying, as mad as a hatter.
His bouts of sanity were frequent and sadly not as fun as his bouts of insanity.
He could see too much of the suffering in the world and he honestly didn’t know why anybody would choose to go through this existence sober or sane.
Sadly, sobriety wasn’t optional in his condition.
As old as he was, he’d need alcohol with the strength of jet fuel to put him on his ass and nobody seemed too interested in devoting much time to that.
So he waited for those bouts of insanity and devoted his saner periods to what he did best.
Killing.
There wasn’t a shortage of things that needed killing and he often found himself pointed in a certain direction, almost like a nuclear warhead, but with more concentrated results.
When he emerged from a killing stupor, it was to find himself in the middle of a field of bodies—none of them even remotely human.
Death, devastation and destruction—it was what he excelled at and he took a strange sort of pride in his work.
So it pissed him off to be called to France.
France wasn’t precisely a hotbed of demon activity.
Strange, if you asked him.
If ever there were people ripe for soul-swapping, it was the French. With their fondness for fashion, beauty and fine food, they had to be making deals somehow. But he supposed they could have moved on to greener pastures.
For a while, the demonic hadn’t found Germany a very welcoming place. That was back when Will had taken up residence there.
He was gone now…
Absently, Rob rubbed his fingers against the necklace he wore. He’d tried to jump through the portal. He wasn’t the only one, but he was one of the few who could have survived down there with his former leader. After all, he’d done serious time down there, once.
Up ahead, he heard a faint noise and he went still, listening.
After a moment, he cast a look around and then he looked up.
By the time the small party passed below him, he was already tucked up in the trees.
If they’d been human, they never would have sensed or noticed him.
Grimm's End: Grimm's Circle, Book 9 Page 4