Black Widow Demon (33 page)

“It’s stable enough, but I want to check behind that blockage,” Walker replied.

The boy had been shifting to shadow, slipping back and forth through walls to explore side tunnels for the past half hour. He took the lantern with him when he did, something Blade found equally as interesting as it was disconcerting. If Walker and his other companions could all carry things with them when they were in shadow—people, perhaps—miners would not need to worry so much about becoming trapped underground. But giving up the lantern left Blade blind while he waited for Walker to return.

Although he had spent the first fourteen years of his life in these depths, he had never cared for mining. Blade had been big for his age and the labor had done him no real harm, but he’d hated when the light disappeared and miners were forced to wait in darkness. Being down below was not the same as the natural gloom of a moonless night. This was complete black—oppressive and suffocating, as if a man had been swallowed by the stomach of the earth. He could not tell if he was sitting or standing. If he tried to move his arms or legs, he became disoriented and fell over.

Blade forced himself to breathe normally, closing his mind to all extraneous thoughts, and concentrated on Raven instead.

He thought it likely the goddess who spoke to him was right when she said that he would fail Raven when it came to protecting her. If her father was telling the truth—in this instance Blade couldn’t afford to assume he was not—then the others were in as much danger as she was, and they would all have to stand and fight. None of them, however, could resort to using their demon abilities. If they did, it would bring stronger and more determined forces against them. Somehow he had to impress that upon them.

But good as he was, by himself he did not truly believe he was capable of fighting off more than one trained assassin at a time. He’d paid for such arrogance before. In the end, he was an ordinary man. If they could not use their demon talents, then the possibility of Laurel and her companions offering any real assistance to him was slight, and while Raven was good with her bow, she was the one he wanted most to protect. He did not, under any circumstances, wish to place her in danger and therefore within her demon father’s reach.

A shout from the direction of the mine’s entrance, far off in the distance, stabbed through the thick sea of black. It echoed off the far reaches of the tunnel shaft before ending abruptly. Blade started, reaching for his knives, reacting on instinct to the cry, then staggered and cracked his head against the chiseled stone of the tunnel wall. As one hand snagged the edge of a sharp cleft to keep from falling over, a faint movement of air and a slight hiss warned him of danger. Something heavy crawled over his right boot. Nasty images of what had happened to Raven after the goldthief bite jigged to the foreground of his thoughts. He was not certain he could survive the nightmares as well as she had. He forced himself to remain still.

Then, Walker was back. The bright yellow beam from the lantern puddled the tunnel floor as Walker shone it in Blade’s direction. The tail end of a long snake disappeared into the shadows behind a detritus of crumbled rock.

“Did you hear someone shout?” Walker asked.

“Yes,” Blade replied grimly. “I did.”

They moved with caution, as fast as they dared, up the gentle slope of the mine shaft. The air they breathed cleared and grew colder. When the blackness became less dense and the lantern’s beam farther reaching, Blade extinguished its light. After that, he followed the sound of Walker’s footsteps.

Within a few moments, daylight from outside began to turn the black to gray.

Not far from the entrance to the mine, one of Walker’s companions sat with his back against a wall. He had his head slumped forward between his knees, and Blade did not need to touch him to know he was dead. The smell made that apparent enough, as did the wide pool of congealing blood.

Blade crouched to take a better look. The man had deep claw marks down one side of his face and across his shoulder. One cheek had peeled off in a large flap of skin. His coat and the shirt underneath were shredded to expose jagged wounds.

And his throat had been torn out.

…

Creed pushed through the patches of dreary, leafless forest and the barren mountain passes, trailing behind Justice and the assassins. After following the men through rough terrain for several days and eavesdropping at night, Creed’s worst fears were confirmed. Siege was dead. And whereas Siege, who was also a Godseeker, could have stood firm, Armor had been forced to acquiesce to Justice’s demands.

The ten assassins had caught up with Justice not far from the goddess boundary, but he had been heading away from it, following tracks he believed to be Blade and Raven’s. He swore that they had more spawn with them and were amassing an army.

The conclusion had puzzled Creed at first until he scouted ahead and realized Blade and Raven were being followed by more than Justice. There were too many footprints. His worry shifted to alarm. The situation was escalating beyond one he believed he could contain. Raven was in real trouble, and Blade would not be enough to protect her.

Another confusing piece in the puzzle was the woman accompanying Justice. As he’d listened at the edge of their encampment during the past few nights, he had heard disturbing rumors about her. Some of the men were inclined to believe she was a goddess. Creed confessed he found it difficult to believe that Justice would align himself with anything else, but it seemed he had. Creed did not need to get close to her to know she was half demon, and Justice kept too tight a rein on her, as if she were more his prisoner than someone he worshipped, to be ignorant of the fact.

The thought of a half demon under Justice’s control did nothing to lessen Creed’s deepening concerns. Whatever had been going on in the world for the past few months, it was about to explode.

Trouble was not coming. It had arrived.

…

Justice called a halt in a rock-strewn clearing above a small valley. Burrowed inside the valley were the remains of a tiny mining village. Most of the buildings showed signs of years of neglect. Several roofs had collapsed. From two of the houses, wisps of smoke spiraled upward into the crisp, late-afternoon air.

Anticipation put Justice in a good mood.

Once he had Raven and proved to the Godseekers the true threat spawn posed to the world, then she would be dealt with in a manner even more spectacular than he’d intended. She would serve as a warning to all women, mortal and spawn alike, who dared believe they could challenge a Godseeker and live.

After Raven, he would expose Willow for what she was, too. With so many assassins around, Willow had not dared turn on him or behave in any way demon-like, but she still had Cage’s death to answer for. The memory of his friend’s screams sometimes woke him, reminding him that women could never be trusted. She would serve as an example of that.

From there, it would be a matter of having the assassins tasked with destroying all the spawn they could find in the world. Abominations could not be allowed to survive. But he would start with the one hiding in the remote little valley.

“Surround the village,” he said to the men. “We need to be cautious. We have no idea how many of them are down there. Once we’ve determined the risk, we’ll begin to move in.”

And he would go first, taking Willow and one assassin with him, leaving Seeker in charge of the others. He did not want any witnesses questioning who had raised the demon.

Once the demon was free, and the witness’s story established, then Justice would call for Seeker to send in the remaining assassins.

…

Frost pinched Raven’s nose when she inhaled. The hint of snow that had been carrying on the cold mountain air for the past several days did not amount to much in the end, but the afternoon air remained brittle and cold.

Raven and Laurel had managed to find enough discarded but useful items to set up rough housekeeping, and they combined their workloads to make the interiors of their new lodgings as comfortable as possible. They had spent the majority of the day hanging strips of meat to dry in a small, homemade smokehouse they discovered behind one of the houses.

“How did you and Blade end up together?” Laurel asked her.

Raven closed the smokehouse door and latched it. Until now, the topic of Blade had been avoided between the two women. The others were wary of him still, and he did not trust them either. Raven was unused to playing the role of peacemaker.

That had been Creed’s role growing up.

“He stopped me from killing a Godseeker,” Raven said.

Laurel lifted the empty basket they had used to carry the meat and rested it on her hip. “I find it difficult to believe he cared enough to save another man’s life, even if he was a Godseeker.”

“It wasn’t the Godseeker’s life he was saving,” Raven said. “It was mine. And I’m sure if I asked him, he couldn’t explain why he did it.”

She told Laurel a bit more about how they’d come to be together, although not everything. She doubted if Blade would care to have any of his story told to others or anything about who he was in terms of a person common knowledge. If he wished to make friends, he had to do it himself.

That did not mean Laurel and the others needed to spend the winter living in constant fear of him.

“Your stepfather still hunts for you?” Laurel asked.

“As far as I know.” Justice was determined and ruthless. Raven had never known him to give up. She had embarrassed him by escaping, and he would not forget that.

The other woman’s sudden tense manner warned Raven that she was uneasy at the thought of a Godseeker arriving to find four more half demons than expected. Raven had wanted to discuss this as a group before now, but Blade had said no—that any one of them could have similar secrets, and until he knew more, he planned to share nothing. But Raven felt her new friend’s anxiety and was about to say more in an attempt to assuage it when Laurel’s attention was diverted by something behind Raven’s head. Her eyes widened, filling with shock and fear.

Raven turned to see what had so captivated her, prepared to defend them both from whatever it was.

A heavy weight slammed into her, carrying her to the ground and rolling with her at the last moment so that she was not crushed beneath it.

“I taught you better than this,” a familiar voice said, deep with disapproval.

“Creed!”

She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed as tight as she could, unable to believe he was here. She had given up faith in him. To have him arrive left her world bright and shining and made her feel invincible.

Laurel hovered nearby, a thick chunk of firewood in her hand.

“I know him,” Raven said to her. “He’s a friend.”

Creed disentangled himself and stood, taking her elbow and pulling her up beside him. She could not take her eyes off him. He had gained muscle, she noticed. His hair was gone, and the edges of a flaming tattoo peeped above the back of his shirt collar. She reached up and ran her fingertips over its outline. It felt hot and alive, and she was not sure she liked it.

Other than that, he was as big and beautiful as ever. He still had the kindest, friendliest eyes she had ever seen, and right now, they were filled to the brim with the same joy she was feeling.

Laurel, too, seemed somewhat awed by his presence.

“Where’s this assassin who’s supposed to be protecting you?” Creed asked. He looked at the sky. “Because as soon as the sun sets, we’ve got trouble.”

“We’ve got trouble now,” Blade said.

They sat in the main room of the house he shared with Raven—Blade, Raven, Creed, Laurel, and Walker. One of Laurel’s companions was dead. The other had not yet returned and likely would not for several more days. The room was cold because Blade had not taken the time to rekindle the fire.

Blade was glad to see Creed but less happy to hear the news he brought with him. Altogether, Justice’s force included two Godseekers, eleven assassins, and a woman who could raise demons and summon enough fire to demolish an entire village—with any inhabitants in it.

And somewhere outside lurked something that could tear a man to shreds.

He told Creed what had happened to the man they had left at the mine. He had followed the trail of blood into the woods at the top of the valley, above the mine. Whoever—whatever—it was watched the approach to the village, not the village itself.

A small gasp had come from Laurel at the start of Blade’s story. Now she was silent but very pale, and she shook all over with a fine trembling that Blade recognized as trauma. Raven held her hand, squeezing her fingers.

“Come with me,” Raven said to her, standing. “Let’s go collect our things from the smokehouse and check on the fire.”

Blade wanted to tell her to stay inside where he could watch her. But the sun had not yet set, the smokehouse was only two houses away, and Laurel did not need to hear any more of this. Still, he could not hide his worry.

Raven paused at the door to glance at him over her shoulder. “We’ll only be a few minutes,” she said.

She was angry with him. Her parting smile for Creed was warmer and lingered longer.

Blade reached for his rifle, which was propped in a corner behind him, and passed it to Walker. “Go with them. Only use this in self-defense.”

Walker took it, nodded once, and followed the women. The door closed behind them.

“What made you come back?” Blade asked Creed.

“I always intended to come. I didn’t want you to know it. You aren’t as impervious to persuasion as you think you are.” Creed grinned. “I needed to find an argument you’d have no trouble believing. It seems you have commitment issues.” He then drew Blade’s attention back to their unfinished discussion. “It wasn’t wolven that killed your man?”