Wicked All Night Page 8

  “I can see,” I said simply.

  Ian grunted. “No surprise that your abilities are still active. Ah, well, let’s see if I can give my vision a jolt.”

  His fingers worked, forming a complex spell. Tactile magic had always been Ian’s strong suit. But when he was finished, nothing happened. He frowned and tried again.

  Phanes laughed. “Magic doesn’t work in the netherworld.”

  Interesting . . . and how would Phanes know that? By spying? If so, what a macabre hobby, staring into this section of the netherworld through his little personal peephole.

  Or was it something else?

  Maybe. I still knew so little about Phanes. At least here, I had the upper hand. If Phanes tried anything, I could leave him behind and seal up the veil after Ian and I.

  But for now, I’d give Phanes the benefit of the doubt.

  “Which way?” I asked him.

  Phanes moved ahead of me. From the sureness of his steps, his vision was better than Ian’s.

  “Follow me.”

  Chapter 16

  The ground sloped, taking us down as well as deeper into the solitary-confinement part of the netherworld. Soon, the walls around the tunnel changed to jagged rocks. They looked like a mix of metamorphic and igneous stone, but streaks glowed through them when I touched them, as if something bioluminescent in the rock responded to me.

  Ian glanced at the streaks before looking back at me. Then, he gave a barely perceptible nod.

  I nodded back, and kept running my hands over the rocks every several meters, leaving gleaming patches behind us. Having a metaphysical trail of bread crumbs meant we wouldn’t be wholly dependent on Phanes for our location. Even if he didn’t have nefarious intentions, men were known to get lost even if they insisted that they knew where they were going.

  Phanes glanced at them with a sardonic curl to his mouth. “Don’t you trust me to see us back safely?”

  “What if you’re incapacitated?” I countered. “Anything could happen down here.”

  “That it could,” Phanes said in an easygoing tone.

  Ian gave him a sharp look, but Phanes didn’t elaborate.

  Nothing dangerous had occurred so far, beyond the ground becoming scattered with rubble, making our steps uneven. How odd that the worst part of “the bad place” so far was the risk of tripping over loose rocks.

  “Stinks in here,” Ian commented.

  From the wrinkle on Phanes’s nose, he agreed. I didn’t notice any bad smell. In fact, I didn’t smell much of anything, which was odd since the regular world was continually awash with various scents.

  “I don’t smell any stink.”

  Ian’s brow rose. He looked like he was about to say something, but with our next few steps, the jagged walls fell away, revealing a narrow path with a steep drop on either side. Inky darkness ran along the bottom of that drop, reminding me of rivers within ravines.

  “Single file from here,” Phanes said. “Careful of the drop, and don’t let the wails distract you.”

  “What wails?” I asked.

  Now Ian stared at me in disbelief. “You can’t hear them? It sounds like every condemned soul in this place is caterwauling at the top of their lungs.”

  I didn’t hear anything beyond the echo of our steps on the stony floor, which was already interesting since we didn’t have real bodies, so how were our steps making enough of an impact to cause echoes?

  “I don’t hear any wails,” I said, growing frustrated.

  “Lucky you,” Phanes muttered. “Even luckier if you still can’t smell the stench. Naxos’s farts weren’t this noxious, and he was half bull.”

  Charming, but more important, why couldn’t I smell or hear what they could? It didn’t make sense, but so far, not a lot did in this place. I’d have to rely on Ian for scents and sounds, and he’d have to rely on me for what he couldn’t see.

  On the bright side, I hoped the people making those horrible sounds deserved whatever they were enduring, but perhaps not. My father’s only crime was freeing the souls that Dagon trapped inside himself, and I didn’t think that was a deed worthy of this place, but here he was.

  “This way,” Phanes said, gesturing to the left side of a new fork in the tunnel.

  “Why can I hear that, but not the other things?” I wondered out loud.

  “Not to worry, luv,” Ian said. “I’ll be your nose and ears for whatever you miss.”

  It was so close to what I’d thought moments ago, I smiled.

  Ian smiled back, giving my hand a light squeeze. “Least this part of the netherworld only smells like decay; an improvement from the stink tunnel.”

  I didn’t catch a scent of decay. I did detect a faint scent of sodium and rock, reminiscent of an abandoned salt mine. It was so odd that I could smell that and not what Ian mentioned, and I could hear them, but not the wails.

  Phanes went to the far side of the tunnel, where a chain was bolted along the wall leading down a dark passageway.

  “We follow this to the end,” he said.

  I was glad of the makeshift handrail as we descended. Within a few meters, the rest of the floor dropped away until we walked on only a narrow ledge. A vast expanse spread out beyond the ledge, so dark that even I couldn’t see far into it.

  I paused to pick up a small rock, and then tossed it into the darkness. The rock clattered as it bounced off the wall below the ledge we stood on. I strained my ears to hear more impact sounds, but after several seconds, still nothing. After a full minute, Ian tugged my arm.

  “Come on, luv. No point dwelling on how long the drop is when we’re not going to fall.”

  We continued along the narrow ledge. Soon, the ground became slick, making me keep a hand on the chain as I walked. I couldn’t see where the new slickness was coming from, and I couldn’t hear the sounds of a stream or other water source. Was that my hearing failing me again? Or something else?

  Either way, I might not be able to hear the source of the water that slicked our narrow ledge, but I could hear a strange, scrabbling sound coming from the darkness below our ledge.

  “Stop,” I said, going very still. We were no longer alone in this place. Hearing aside, I could also feel it.

  “Something’s coming,” I whispered.

  A surge of air rushed up, feeling like fingertips brushing across my ankles. I looked down, and gasped.

  A creature clung to the sheer wall below me. It had two arms and two legs, but the humanoid similarities ended there. It was eyeless, and its slick, pale skin resembled the bioluminescence some fish in deep waters had. It opened its mouth, revealing rows of sharp teeth, and then skittered up the wall at an incredible speed.

  Instinctively, I tried to summon magic as a defense, but it felt like ashes within me. Right, magic didn’t work here. Dammit! My other vampire abilities might not, either, and for once, my Death’s Daughter powers were useless, too. I couldn’t send this creature to the netherworld: we were already here.

  “Everyone, pull the chain tight!” I ordered.

  Ian snapped the chain back, yanking up the slack. A moment later, Phanes did, too. I grabbed the chain with both hands and braced my feet against the wall. In the next instant, the creature swiped at me with razorlike claws—

  I shoved off the wall and kicked it in the head with both feet. My momentum briefly sent me into the darkness with it, but my grip on the chain and its new tautness swung me back. I landed painfully against the ledge before Ian pulled me up.

  “Bloody hell,” he muttered as the light from the creature’s bioluminescent flesh illuminated its fall. “What was that? I didn’t even see it until it was right upon us!”

  “I have no idea,” I replied.

  More than two hundred meters below, I saw the creature land in what at first looked like water. Then its flesh sizzled, and its body broke apart before disintegrating entirely.

  “Shit,” I said resignedly.

  “What?” Impatience coated Ian’s tone.
<
br />   “You can’t see that?”

  “If I could, would I ask you about it?”

  With my other side flowing through me until I couldn’t tell where she ended and I began, I was able to meet his eyes without my usual amount of panic over his safety.

  “There’s a lake of supernatural acid below this ledge, so whatever you do, don’t fall in.”

  Instead of being concerned, Ian laughed.

  “Lake of acid? That’s more like it. Was starting to be very disappointed by the lack of horror in this section of the netherworld.”

  “It is only the solitary-confinement area,” Phanes said with a quick, grim smile. “The active-punishment section is sufficiently horrifying, I assure you.”

  Good gods! Did he spend all his time spying in here? As the modern saying goes, Phanes obviously needed to get laid.

  “Good to know,” Ian said in a mild tone. “Now, let’s get her da out of here before any other critters notice us.”

  Phanes continued to lead along the narrow ledge, which curved into a corner up ahead. Either he could see as well as I could, or he knew this route well from his incessant spying.

  “Her father is this way,” Phanes said.

  I kept one hand on the chain as I walked, not wanting to risk being caught off balance by another charging creature. As I walked, I strained my senses for any indication that another attack was coming from below.

  So far, nothing. Just our footfalls and the soft scrape of Phanes’s wings against the wall from how narrow the ledge was. After we came to the other side of the sharp bend, Phanes stopped. I followed his gaze to the other side of the cavern.

  I recognized the alcove from Phanes’s previous spy-cam vision. It was still cut into the rock wall as if some giant had swung an ax and cleaved off the small space before growing bored and abandoning the project. But the figure chained inside the short ledge that made up the entirety of his prison wasn’t my father. He also wasn’t alone. Someone with wings was behind him.

  “Who is—?”

  Phanes suddenly leapt up before slamming down on the narrow ledge with stunning force. The ledge crumbled beneath the impact, sending the three of us catapulting into the darkness.

  Chapter 17

  My arm wrenched painfully as my fall was abruptly stopped. I looked up. Ian was dangling by the chain we’d been using as a handrail, his grip on my arm keeping me aloft. Rocks that used to be firm ground now pelted me as they fell around us.

  I didn’t see Phanes, damn him. I hoped he’d tumbled right into the acid lake, but with those huge wings, he’d probably flown away. I tried to fly, too, and cursed in several languages when I couldn’t. Why were my powers so restricted in this place? I was supposed to be in my element in the netherworld, not as helpless as a human!

  “I can’t seem to fly, can you?” Ian ground out as the chain creaked in an ominous way. Despite not having real bodies, it didn’t seem capable of holding our combined weight.

  “No, but—”

  A large form bashed into us from behind with tremendous force. Ian’s grip tore free as feathers surrounded me. I twisted, trying to pummel Phanes, when he hurled me downward.

  I grabbed at the nearby rock wall to try to stop my fall. It was slick from the same substance that had made the ledge so slippery, and I couldn’t get a good grip. I kept trying, but either my non-fleshly fingers weren’t strong enough, or I was falling too fast. I could no longer see Ian, and a quick glance down revealed that the acid lake was getting closer.

  “Ian!” I screamed.

  “Part the lake!” I heard him roar. “Do it now!”

  If this were regular water and we were back in our world, that would be easy. But none of my abilities had worked here. Still, I sent my senses downward, seeking out the liquid that made up the acid lake. When I felt it, I wrapped everything I had around it and thought a single word.

  Back!

  Liquid shot out in every direction, splashing the rock walls that bordered the acid lake. More creatures I hadn’t seen before that moment screamed as it hit them. Then, they dropped into the acid and dissolved on contact.

  I’d made the lethal lake move, but not enough to part it. The rock wall rushed by me, faster and faster. Another twenty meters, and I’d be enveloped by the roiling liquid that coated the walls in repeated splashes.

  Obey me! my other half bellowed at the lake. Now!

  The liquid scattered right before I hit it. I fell onto dry stone with enough force to shatter all my bones, if I’d had any. In this form, I didn’t. It still hurt, though, not that I was complaining. Pain meant that I wasn’t dead.

  A light spray coming off the acid waves swirling in every direction around me burned even though none of the actual acid touched me. I ignored the feel of daggers in my eyes as I stared upward, desperately trying to get a glimpse of Ian.

  “If you can, land right on top of me!” I shouted. “Only this small area is dry!”

  “. . . not falling,” I faintly heard back.

  Relief crashed through me. Ian was still alive. Still alive, and somehow, he’d managed to stop his fall.

  Other sounds drifted down to me. A series of clanging, and then voices, too fragmented for me to discern words. Moments later, I heard laughter distinctly enough. I shaded my eyes from the burning, half-blinding spray to see golden wings circling in the air well over a hundred meters above me.

  “You truly are surprising,” I heard Phanes say, but he wasn’t talking to me. “I expected she might survive the fall, but I was certain that you would die.”

  “I don’t die very easily,” Ian replied, his voice garbled.

  Another laugh. “I’m starting to realize that.”

  I wished I could see Ian, but the burning spray limited my vision. It would be hard to see Phanes, too, except his huge golden wings provided a splash of color against the darkness.

  “I’d finish you off, but as you can see, my hands are now full,” Phanes continued in an amiable tone. “Besides, you won’t last long. Before you die, do give Veritas my regards.”

  “I can hear you, you duplicitous bastard!” I shouted.

  A graceful dive later, and Phanes was close enough for me to see that he held two people in his arms. It was too dark to make out much about them, except that one of them had wings, and they both slumped as though unconscious.

  “Remember when you said I didn’t love anyone enough to die for them?” Phanes asked. “You were right. Long ago, I abandoned my friends when I should have fought to the death with them. I even claimed I’d been the one to defeat them in order to raise my status among my kind. I received all the acclaim I’d craved, yet guilt made it meaningless. I thought I could never undo that mistake . . . until the first time you used your powers, when the veil separating my realm from the netherworld cracked.”

  What? I thought my powers only ripped a single, temporary hole into the netherworld that closed as soon as I was finished! It had cracked other veils between worlds instead?

  “You were gone by the time I traced your power to your location,” Phanes went on. “Thousands of years passed without a reoccurrence. I thought you must have perished. My powers allowed me to see into the netherworld, so I watched my friends suffer, and could do nothing to save them. Then, ten days ago, the veil bordering my world cracked again.” Phanes paused to smile. “I knew it had to be you, and this time, I vowed to let nothing stop me from finding you and convincing you to open the veil. It was easier than I thought. I only had to tell you that your father was trapped here for you to insist on entering the netherworld. I even pretended to want to stay behind to further lull you into trusting me. Now, finally, I have freed my friends. You gave me that gift, so for that, I thank you.”

  Thank you? What did the fucker think I was going to say to that? You’re welcome?

  “You come off like the misunderstood hero, but you’re full of shit,” I said coldly. “You’re not here to save your friends so they can live quiet, peaceful lives. If t
hat were the case, you could have asked for my help. But no. You’ve got bigger plans, don’t you? Let me guess: these two are the gods that your circle-jerk play showed you defeating?”

  I didn’t need to see his expression to know I was right. His silence confirmed it since Phanes was so rarely silent.

  I let out a contemptuous laugh. “What, you think now that you’ve busted them out of their eternal jail, they’ll let you back into their conquer-Earth club? Is that why Helena tried to kill me? Because she knew what you were up to? Now her last words make sense. She said, ‘Can’t let you,’ but you killed her before she could finish the sentence, didn’t you?”

  “Soon, you’ll be dead, too,” Phanes said in silky tone. “Pity. You’ll never see the good that can come from real rulers assuming control. Humans have wrecked your world almost beyond saving, but now the gods are back, and mortal rule is over.”

  I dropped my hand. No matter the additional burning from the acid wall that spun around me like a hollow geyser, I wanted Phanes to see every bit of my expression when I spoke.

  “It’ll never happen, Phanes. I will get out of here, and when I do, I will come for you.”

  He only snorted. “That sort of disagreeable attitude is why I’m leaving you behind. If you would have been more biddable, I would have honored our betrothal and taken you for my wife.”

  Biddable? “I would rather bathe in this acid lake than become your wife.”

  “You will bathe in it once your power falters.”

  Rage made the walls swirling around me shoot high enough to almost reach Phanes. He flew away at once.

  “Until then, thank you as well for the bodies you and Ian left in my world,” he tossed down to me. “If it’s any comfort, they will live on even though you won’t. My friends will make good use of them since they need new vessels for their souls.”

  “You won’t get away with this!” I shouted, which wasn’t the most original response, but I was too furious to be creative.

  He continued flying away, soon becoming only a dark speck against an even darker background.