Damnation Marked (12 page)

Alarm bells rang out in his head.
Her eyes are black. Completely black. That can’t be right.

But she spoke before he could move away. “Who are you?” Her voice was musical and light. He almost didn’t notice the undertone of a throatier, more womanly voice beneath it.

Anthony…

His flashlight dimmed again, but all Anthony wanted to do was pick up the girl, carry her from the Warrens, and take her somewhere safe. She was so helpless. So fragile.

He stretched out his hands as he lowered himself to a crouch.

“My name’s Anthony. Anthony Morales. It’s okay—I’m one of the good guys.”

As he approached, she buried her face in her arms again. Her blond hair fell over her forehead. “I’m scared,” she whispered.

I’m so lonely. Hold me.

“I’ll get you out of here,” he said, sounding braver than he felt. She drew into a tighter ball when he kneeled at her side.

“You can help me?”

He reached out to touch her shoulder. “Yeah. Of course. I won’t leave you.”

She lifted her head again. Her face was round, with a pointed chin and plump red lips. More of a woman’s face than a child’s. Tears shone on her cheeks, dripping off her jaw onto a bony clavicle. Her skin was luminous, like moonlight contained in human form. Beautiful. Truly beautiful.

“Thank you for saving me, Anthony,” she said.

Her lips didn’t move when she spoke.

Her mouth yawned open, sudden and wide and filling his vision. He shouted and threw himself back, landing hard on his butt. The shock of it jolted up his spine.

Anthony flung an arm up to shield his face. The back of his head bounced against the wall.

The darkness was complete.

VI

E
lise wasn’t surprised
when the flashlights died again. She was more surprised that it had taken so long.

She slammed her flashlight against her hip, but the bulb didn’t even flicker. She forced herself to speak calmly. “Don’t worry, guys. We don’t need the lights anyway. Nukha’il?”

The angel’s eyes lit first, shining like daylight through blue plates of a stained glass window. A second glow followed quickly at his back. It wasn’t his wings—there wasn’t enough room to deploy them—but it came from the space where they should have been. The ethereal light penetrated the darkness, flooding a few feet around them in the hall.

Anthony was not there.

Elise swore, kicking a loose rock into the wall. It gave a satisfying, but muffled,
crack
.

“Goddamn it, Anthony—I told him to stay close!”

“He’s most likely been taken.”

Cold reality splashed over her anger to dampen it. “No. He’s fine. He’s probably just a couple of halls away. Go find him.”

His wings drooped. “And leave you alone, with no light?” Nukha’il looked so pathetic that an ounce of something resembling sympathy bloomed within her.

“I’ll be fine.”

His glimmering gaze was locked upon her. “If you want me to search the darkness for him, I will search. I only want to see you happy.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“I have no choice. When I’m near you, all I think about is having your smile radiate on me.”

She took a step back, but he responded with a step forward. Nukha’il took her hand.

“Don’t,” she warned.

He dipped his head, and before she could react, he kissed her knuckles. It was the barest touch, but it jolted into shoulders, elbows, and palms.

The pain was instant and all consuming. She stiffened. Tried to breathe. But all she could smell was sunrise, sunset, the moon in the sky, the heavy moisture of clouds—angel smells. It only intensified the pain. Her vertebrae locked together as if gripped by silver spikes.

Elise pushed him back. Touching him made her hands burn, but it took a moment for her brain to register the additional sensation, like briefly resting her hands on a hot stove.

“Jesus,” she bit out, shutting her eyes against the shudders rippling through her. She didn’t have to remove her gloves to know that the marks would be bleeding. Again. It rippled through her in waves, contracting her back muscles and making her head swim. But each ripple was smaller than the last, and after a few seconds, the pain faded.

When she opened her eyes again, there was a helpless, searching look on Nukha’il’s face. “You never smile for me,” he whispered.

Revulsion swirled in her gut. “Don’t you
ever
do that again.”

“I know, I know. It is damnation—sweet damnation.” Nukha’il gave a shuddering sigh. “I love Itra’il so much. So very, very much. But it’s nothing like what I feel for you, Elise. You are a forest fire, and I am the dry grass. I adore you. I want—”

“I don’t care what you want,” she interrupted.

His brow knitted. “I want to be rid of you. I’ve watched civilizations rise and fall, but I’m helpless against you because you’ve been marked by Him. I’m only sane when you aren’t around.” Nukha’il’s pale eyes burned with barely-contained fire. “I think I hate you, Elise, in as many ways as I love you.”

She said nothing. She hadn’t asked for it—any of it. She hadn’t even wanted the angel to come back to the city.

Nukha’il took a deep breath. His face blanked, and he was calm once more.

“You’ve made a request, and I’ll honor it. Your whims are my directives.”

He strode away, followed by the dim ghost of wings. He took all the light with him.

She worked her mouth around, gathering what little saliva was on her tongue, and spit it onto the asphalt. It was stained with blood.

Elise hated to be adored.

Even though her skin still buzzed, she didn’t hesitate—she jogged down the mineshaft the instant Nukha’il was gone. She didn’t have far to go. Elise’s movements began echoing differently, and she realized she was at the end of the tunnel.

She held out her hands and moved slowly until she found the door. She ran her hands over the wood and found the metal bar that served as a handle. Even in the darkness, she could make out the faint shape of magic glimmering over it; she had used one of Craven’s resident witches, Treeny, to cast a weak locking charm on the entrance. Theoretically, only she and Nukha’il should have been able to get inside.

She pressed her hand against the metal bar. The door slid open.

White light flooded the hall.

It was like falling into the sun. Elise flung up her sword to shield her stinging eyes. Tears blurred her vision.

“Who’s there?” she shouted into the light.

The responding voice was cool and masculine. “Come in and close the door.”

Elise headed down the ramp encircling the room with the gate, following her memories rather than her vision.

She began to make out shapes in the room—first, the high, arching stone of the gate. It wasn’t the source of the light. It was no more than a shadow. But she could see the marks rimming the base, even through the specter of too-bright light in her eyes. It hummed when she approached, as if greeting her.

Then she saw the shape of the cavern stretching high overhead. She had never been able to see the roof of it before. It was always too dim. But the light filled every cranny, and she realized that the Night Hag had left tapestries suspended near the top. Dozens of them.

Finally, she saw the source of the light.

It was a man. He stood in front of the dark gate with his thumbs hooked in the belt loops of a pair of very snug leather pants. He was barefoot, bare-chested, and wore a thin leather collar with a ruby in the center. Black hair spilled down his shoulders to his lower back. His eyes were almond-shaped, and they tilted up at the corners as though he smiled, though it didn’t touch his lips.

“Elise,” he greeted.

It took her a moment to remember how to speak. “Thom?”

The man who called himself Thom Norrel sauntered toward her. With each step, the light dimmed, becoming more and more bearable until it was no more than a comfortable white glow.

The last time Elise had seen him, he had been pretending to be a witch in the service of the Night Hag, but he had vanished after Elise returned from the angelic city. James admitted that they had spoken once while she was unconscious, though he was vague about the details of that conversation. The only thing he would say was that he was certain that Thom was not a witch at all—probably not even human. Elise was inclined to agree.

“I was beginning to think that you might have been devoured in the Warrens. It’s good to see you’ve survived.” His voice was pure silk.

“Nukha’il told me he didn’t recognize the man by the gate.”

“I wasn’t recognizable when he found me,” Thom said.

Elise frowned. “What did you look like?”

He gave an elegant shrug. “Someone else. I wanted to get your attention. Would you have hurried here as quickly if Nukha’il had told you that I was the one waiting?”

“Maybe,” Elise said. “It depends on what you’re doing here.”

He circled her, his dark eyes scanning her from feet to face. She resisted the urge to turn and keep him in her line of sight. “Perhaps I wanted a few minutes alone with you.”

“Bullshit.”

“Such language,” he murmured.

“The gate is supposed to be locked. Nobody should be able to get in here.”

“I don’t care for locks.” Thom fluttered a hand at the cavern. “I also don’t care for shadows.”

Elise’s hand tensed on her falchion. “What do you know about that?”

“Everything, as a matter of fact.” He let the sentence hang in the air as he slunk back to the gate’s dais. Thom sank to the first step, lounging on it like a cat in the sunshine. He never took his eyes off of her. “You can put that away.”

Reluctantly, Elise sheathed her sword. She had fought Thom once—just once. She hadn’t won. He was about as impressed by swords as he was by locks and shadows.

“Tell me why you’re here, and feel free to skip the cryptic crap.”

He studied his fingernails. They were painted black. “I’m holding up my end of the agreement.”

“What agreement?”

“You agreed that the infernal and ethereal delegations would help you guard this gateway. I have watched as you and that angel bumbled for weeks, doing your best to bluster and intimidate petty demons while an enemy emerged unseen and unopposed. She approaches now, and I’m here to stop her.”

“How do you know about the agreement?”

“I am the father of all things that slink in the night,” he said. “I know
everything
.”

The last word slipped through the air and curled around her. Elise recalled the night of the summit, when she had stood alone in the desert with Nukha’il and a demon-possessed cat to discuss the guardianship of the gates. If Thom knew what they had discussed…

“The cat?” she guessed.

He smiled. “Come sit with me.”

Elise didn’t move.

“If you know what’s happening, this would be a great time to share.”

“We have little time. I shall make this brief.” Thom held up one finger. “You know the dark gate beyond this one can lead to your greatest foe. But for a demon to pass through the door would violate the quarantine, and the Treaty of Dis. The consequences could be disastrous.”

“Apocalypse,” Elise said, and he shrugged.

“Possibly.” Thom lifted a second finger. “A demon
wants
to pass through the gate. She wants to destroy the world, and everything in it.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Including herself?”

A smile quirked at the corner of his mouth. “Especially herself.”

“And that’s the shadow.” She paced along the edge of the cavern, giving the dais a wide berth. There had once been other paths into the cave, paths that led to other branches of the Warrens, but Elise had sealed them with Neuma’s help as soon as she had moved into the manager’s office at Craven’s. She had boarded them up and poured cement into the doorways.

They were all intact, and there was no reason to think they could have been opened. But she checked them anyway.

“Yes.” He lifted a third finger. “Finally, I am the only thing that has prevented her from achieving her goals. She is at your front door now, knocking in the only way she knows how.”

“Does this shadow have a name?” Elise called back to the dais.

“Yes.” Thom’s voice came from right behind her, and she jumped, spinning to face him. He loomed behind her. His irises were black, making his pupils seem enlarged, and he radiated heat. “She is Yatai—the oldest demon alive.”

His voice caressed down her body like a warm waterfall. Elise swallowed hard and tried not to stare at his bare chest.

A shimmer caught her eye.

One of the doorways in the very back of the room had collapsed. The boards Elise had nailed in place were shattered, tearing down part of the stone wall to bare, raw mineral.

The rocks sparkled with flakes of brassy yellow pyrite. Where water dripped over the stones, they were stained with sulfuric acid.

Elise had been on the other side of that collapse not two hours before.

As she watched, the rocks shivered again. The glint of pyrite had only caught her eye because it was vibrating.

Thom followed her gaze, and he arched one eyebrow.

“And now Yatai is coming,” he said, as calmly as though he were announcing his dinner plans.

He winked out of existence at her side.

Then the collapsed section exploded.

Concrete and wood showered around Elise. She jumped back, shielding her head with her arms.

Everything she had constructed to block the shaft was scattered across the ground. The hole yawned open, and there was nothing beyond it.

Silence fell over the cavern. The last of the dust and debris rained around her, settling on her hair and shoulders.

Something in the tunnel moved.

Exorcist…

Her heart leaped into the back of her throat. She held her falchion between her body and the tunnel like a shield, vulnerable without her second blade.

“You can’t have the gate, Yatai,” she growled.

Motion in the depths of the darkness.

The sound of scurrying was faint at first, like distant rats scrabbling in the walls. It could have been a breeze in the mines, whispering down the hole vacated by Rick’s Drugstore. But it quickly grew, and it rushed toward her, approaching impossibly fast.