Daimon: Guardians of Hades Series Book 6

by Heaton, Felicity

  Struck the two males.

  Crimson rained down on her as they exploded, drenching the peeling white walls of the cavernous room with blood.

  Cass kept on screaming, couldn’t stop herself as pain burned a path through her, felt as if it was destroying all of her. She leaned forwards, tears streaming down her face, agony ripping her to pieces inside as she broke down. The floor bucked beneath her, the entire building trembling.

  “Holy hell,” Valen muttered, sounding out of breath. “So much for questioning them.”

  “Ah, shit.” Ares’s grave voice pulled a hard sob from her as she stumbled to the block of ice and sank to her knees before Daimon.

  Everyone fell silent.

  Ares crouched beside her, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. He growled as he scrubbed at something on the floor and she looked down at it.

  At the circle drawn on the wooden boards.

  Pain and sorrow twisted inside her as she pieced together what had happened. The enemy had trapped Daimon here. Unable to attack them because of the ward, he had turned his power on himself.

  He had sacrificed himself to save the gates, to protect his world and this one.

  She cursed him for that.

  Pressed her hands to the slick ice and stared at him.

  Her beautiful god.

  She closed her eyes.

  Tensed.

  Her breath rushed from her.

  She lunged for Ares’s hands, muttering a protection spell at the same time. He tried to break free as she grabbed him but she refused to let go, fielding a black look from him.

  “She gone crazy?” Valen frowned at her as he leaned towards Marek.

  “Maybe,” she muttered and brought Ares’s hands to the ice, desperate to know that she wasn’t imagining things. “Melt it.”

  Magic never lied though.

  She closed her eyes.

  Saw the faint, pulsing white outline of Daimon in the centre of the ice.

  Each pulse of light was paler than the last, and the time between them was growing.

  “Hurry.” She shoved Ares’s hands harder against the ice.

  “Back off then.” Ares jerked free of her grip and glared at her. “I’m not doing this with you in the firing line.”

  She shuffled away from him and everyone else backed off.

  Ares closed his eyes and blew out his breath, his dark eyebrows drawing down as he moved his hands over the ice. Heat shimmered over them, starting to rise off his shoulders too as he worked to melt the ice.

  “You’re doing good,” she said, hoping to encourage him, partly because she wanted him to keep going and partly because she didn’t want him to burn the building down.

  She had never seen him try to control his fire before, hadn’t realised how difficult it was for him.

  Sweat dotted his brow, fizzled and turned to steam, and his face set in hard lines, concentration etched on it. His shoulders tensed, arms shaking.

  She looked at Daimon, more aware than ever of the similarities between him and Ares. Her heart went out to both of them, always having to hold back their powers and fight to keep them in check so they didn’t hurt the ones they loved.

  She was going to do something about that once this was all over.

  If Daimon came back to her, she would move heaven and earth to find a spell that would allow him to have physical contact with his brothers again.

  She would do the same for Ares as a thank you for helping her save the man she loved.

  The ice creaked and then cracked, great fault lines spreading across it as it gave under the heat of Ares’s power. Water pooled around them, slipping between the cracks between the floorboards, dripping into the empty building below them.

  The faint pulses of light grew stronger as the ice melted away from Daimon. She swore she wasn’t imagining it.

  Cass jerked right, towards Ares, as a huge chunk of ice crashed down and tumbled across the floor. More followed it and Marek pulled her backwards as one came right at her. She gasped and looked at Ares, relief washing over her as none of them struck him. They melted as soon as they neared him, falling as water that hissed as it touched his skin.

  The moment the ice was gone from Daimon’s upper half, she pulled free of Marek’s grip and rushed to him. She pressed her fingers to his throat, shivering as the cold numbed them, desperately seeking a sign of life.

  She whipped her head around when she found it.

  “It’s weak,” she said, voice wobbling as emotions collided inside her, fear fighting the hope that had dared to rise.

  Marek and Valen grabbed Daimon and hauled him from the ice, laying him out on the floorboards. They shook their hands, flexing their reddened fingers. It seemed even when he was close to death, Daimon’s power still affected his body.

  Ares moved to him and held his hands palm down above his brother, ghosting them over him as Cass joined him. She kept her fingers to Daimon’s throat, studying his pulse.

  It was too faint for her liking. Slowing again.

  He was going to die.

  She shoved that thought out of her mind, banishing it as determination flooded her, had her running through every spell she knew.

  She had studied the basics of necromancy and she was talented at healing. If she combined the two, would it be enough to pull a living person back from the brink of death?

  She looked down at Daimon, heart breaking and tears filling her eyes.

  It was worth a shot.

  “Hey!” Valen barked as she held her hand out and one of the knives he wore strapped to his ribs shot into her palm.

  His golden eyes widened and he lunged for her as she brought it down towards Daimon’s throat.

  Keras grabbed her before he could, hauling her away from their brother, and she loosed a frustrated grunt when she tried to break free of his grip and couldn’t.

  “I can save him.” She thought she could anyway. “Let me go.”

  Keras didn’t look convinced.

  “Let her try.” Ares sagged beside her, shaking his head, his dark eyes bleak. “I’ve done all I can.”

  Keras kept hold of her, and just as she was about to lash out at him with the knife, he released her.

  She twisted back towards Daimon and carefully nicked his bare shoulder, just enough to draw a few drops of blood. She cut the tips of her index and middle finger and pressed them to the blood on Daimon’s shoulder. Her eyes slipped shut as she focused on the powerful connection that formed between them.

  Cass started with the healing spell first, weaving the strongest one she could manage, and began threading it with incantations she had read in an ancient tome, one that had felt closest to the truth about necromancy to her.

  With the tracking spell still active, she could see Daimon as he lay before her, could see Keras as he came to kneel on the other side of him and pressed his fingers to Daimon’s throat.

  “Is it working?” Ares said.

  Keras nodded. “His pulse is getting stronger.”

  Cass was careful to keep the focus of the spell heavily on the healing side, holding back the darker magic that rose within her, flooding her with cold.

  “We need to be ready to move him the moment he’s strong enough.” Keras’s tone had her focus slipping and the hairs on the back of her neck rising. “This was all too easy.”

  He was right about that.

  “Maybe they figured he was dead and useless to them?” Valen sounded hopeful.

  “Maybe it’s a trap?” Marek offered as a counterpoint.

  She was inclined to go with Marek’s theory.

  Focusing harder, she funnelled the healing spell into Daimon, thawing the ice in his veins with it as the darker magic pooled around his heart and his brain.

  “Think he might come back wrong?” Valen whispered.

  “Not helping,” Ares muttered before she could say it.

  “Just asking is all. I want him back as much as everyone else, but what if he comes back wi
th a craving for brains?”

  Cass frowned but didn’t take her focus away from slowly healing Daimon’s vital organs as she bit out, “He wasn’t dead.”

  But he had been close.

  His lungs had taken a beating, were slow to respond as she poured the healing spell into them. The darker magic crawled down from his heart, spreading over his lungs, and she did her best to guide it, but it didn’t feel entirely under her control. It was like it had a mind of its own. She could direct the healing spell, but the one intended to revive the dead was doing its own thing.

  Cass focused on building a tether between her and the spell.

  Something it didn’t like.

  She was beginning to understand why the great covens of the world had banned necromancy.

  The spell strained against her, attempting to pull away from her. Not good. She narrowed all her focus down to it, releasing her control over the healing spell, and commanded it to return to her. When it didn’t, she worked backwards over the incantation she had used to form it, pulling it apart piece by piece.

  Something it really didn’t like.

  Daimon jacked up off the floor and roared.

  “Brains?” Valen murmured, a worried note in his voice.

  Cass shoved her hands against Daimon’s chest to hold him down and pumped another spell into him, one she hoped would contain his ice for at least a few minutes because she couldn’t do this alone. “I’m starting to see why witches avoid necromancy. A little help?”

  Marek and Valen moved to pin Daimon down for her.

  His eyes shot open, irises pure white ringed with glowing blue.

  Cass grabbed the sides of his head and leaned over him, stared into those eyes and commanded the spell to release him.

  When it didn’t, she pressed her mouth to his and breathed in, felt it as the treacherous spell that had been seeping into his lungs was drawn towards her.

  She broke away from his mouth and exhaled before covering it again and drawing another breath, stealing the air from his lungs.

  She tasted blood.

  And then ashes.

  She kept sucking in air as she pulled her head back.

  “What the—” Valen barked, disgust lacing his voice.

  Cass snapped Daimon’s mouth closed the moment the twisting black and violet cloud passed his lips and Keras pinched Daimon’s nose as the spell lunged for it.

  She closed her hands around the spell and gritted her teeth as it fought her, as she muttered a reversal spell intended to erase it.

  “Cass?”

  The sound of her name had never been so sweet.

  She looked down into Daimon’s ice-blue eyes, tears filling hers as he stared at her.

  “What are you doing here?” Daimon croaked.

  Valen began quietly singing ‘love is in the air’, earning himself a cuff around the back of his head from Marek.

  “Saving your sorry ass,” Ares offered. “I leave you alone for five minutes and you’re off doing heroic shit.”

  Daimon’s eyes edged towards his brothers and he pushed out a single word as a shudder wracked him. “Nemesis.”

  “We figured as much,” Ares said.

  Cass wrestled with the unruly spell, closing her fingers tightly around it and trying to contain it as it attempted to leak out of even the smallest crack.

  Daimon looked back at her, his weary blue eyes lowering to her hands. “What’s…”

  “Oh, just a little necromancy.” She tried to keep her voice light as she fought it. “It’s not happy to leave you.”

  His eyes widened slightly. “That was in me?”

  “I refer you back to the part where you were almost dead.” She grunted as she hit the spell with another reversal incantation and relaxed a little as this one was effective, had the ball of dark magic losing enough strength that she could contain it.

  It grew docile in her hands and she was quick to finish unpicking the spell she had used to create it.

  Daimon tried to push up onto his elbows. Keras helped him, gripping his shoulders and easing him into a sitting position, and then quickly releasing him.

  “Don’t rush it,” Cass warned, deeply aware that the healing spell was still at work inside him. “You, ah, this isn’t the only spell that I used, but it is the only one that I removed.”

  Daimon pressed a hand to his stomach and paled. “I thought I felt weird.”

  “That’s probably the brush with death you had,” Ares growled. “Last time I’m letting you out of my sight.”

  “You should rest.” Cass vanquished the spell and sagged as she let her hands fall to her lap. She needed a nice rest too.

  Daimon nodded and looked around the apartment, and then at her. “Did you deal with the Erinyes?”

  “The Erinyes?” Keras said.

  “They were here.” Daimon frowned at all the blood. “You didn’t kill them?”

  “Little miss witch here popped two Messengers like they were zits, but no one else was in the building.” Valen flipped one of his knives in his hand, his eyes on Daimon the entire time.

  That bad feeling Cass had been having since Keras had announced reaching Daimon had been too easy returned full force.

  “We should go.” She placed her hand on Daimon’s arm and looked at Keras.

  “But you are exactly where we want you to be.”

  The female voice rolled across the room.

  “And it appears you do have exactly what we need.”

  A second female voice echoed around her.

  Cold shot down Cass’s spine.

  Marek had been right. It was a trap.

  Daimon grabbed Cass, hauling her to him as he growled and bared emerging fangs, his eyes glittering like ice.

  Around them, violet-black smoke billowed and twisted, spreading to form five portals that flickered with green and purple lightning.

  The two Erinyes stepped from the shadows, melting out of them.

  The bitches had been hiding in this room all along, waiting for the right moment to strike.

  Waiting for her to reveal she could use necromancy and for Daimon to be free of his ice and revived, his blood ready for them to use against the gate.

  Keras seized hold of Ares as the male collared Valen and Valen grabbed Marek.

  The moment everyone was in contact, darkness devoured them.

  Cass grunted when she was dumped unceremoniously on the damp grass of Central Park and Daimon landed on her, his back slamming into her legs. She rolled as Keras dropped out of the air too, narrowly avoiding being crushed by him. He crashed into the grass, breathing hard, sweat dotting his brow.

  Ares bit out a curse and rushed to check on him. “Teleporting so many was dangerous. I had Valen and Marek.”

  Keras shook violently as he pushed onto his knees, his breath sawing from between his lips. His right hand had burns on it and his left was marred with black bruises, his fingers reddened by cold, telling her that the spell she had used on Daimon had faded but had done its job while it had lasted. That gave her something to go on, built hope that she could do something to help Ares and Daimon with their powers.

  Cass touched Keras’s arm and funnelled a healing spell into him as she looked up at Ares. “We need to move.”

  “Can’t.” That single word leaving Daimon’s lips had everyone looking at him and cold stealing through her.

  Dread pooled inside her. “What do you mean, can’t?”

  Remorse shone in his eyes as he glanced at her. “They’ve been in contact with me. They can open the gate. I can’t let them near it.”

  “You’re in no fit state to fight!” she barked and froze, her anger rushing from her as her eyes darted around the dimly lit field.

  Portals opened in all directions, daemons spilling from them.

  Ares turned his back to her, facing a group of twenty daemons as they charged towards them. Valen moved to stand on the other side of her, his fingers flexing around his blade as lightning arced along the m
etal.

  Keras lumbered onto his feet, shaking his head.

  “I’m getting you out of here. Your brothers can handle this.” Cass formed the incantation in her mind, heart racing as she hurried to complete it before Daimon could do something reckless like launching into the fray as a fight erupted around them.

  “Get her out of here.” Daimon pulled her hand from his arm, and she had never heard him so afraid or so desperate.

  “You need me here,” she snapped and tried to seize him again, determined to stay with him if he wasn’t going to let her take him away from the fight.

  Before she could grab him, someone grabbed her.

  Darkness whirled around her.

  Fury poured through her.

  No damned way she was being benched.

  She hit Marek with the first spell that rose to her fingertips, one that blasted him away from her, and screamed as she fell into the abyss.

  Hit something very solid.

  Cass wheezed, struggling to get air into her lungs as her entire body ached, and pushed onto her hands and knees.

  Was she back in Tokyo?

  Or Central Park?

  She stood on wobbly legs.

  Her blood chilled as she took in her surroundings.

  Black lands stretched in all directions, rising into sharp mountains ahead of her.

  Beyond an enormous obsidian Greek temple.

  Cass swallowed hard.

  The Underworld.

  She froze as metal clanked and air shifted around her, and edged her hands up in front of her. The four males clad in black armour only jerked the pointed tips of their onyx spears closer to her head.

  This wasn’t good.

  She re-evaluated that thought as a crushing wave of dark power pressed down on her, driving her to her knees on the basalt.

  Cass fought the power, resisted it enough to lift her head, and wished she hadn’t as her stomach dropped.

  Before her towered a man with malice in his crimson eyes, a god whose crown rose in jagged onyx spikes from his black hair. The warm light of his realm reflected off the black metal plates of his armour as he shifted slightly, a breeze catching the heavy blood-red cloak fixed to his shoulders.

  He lowered the bident he gripped and pointed it at her chest and then lifted it, so the cold metal kissed her skin and she had to tip her head back to avoid being cut.