Darkness Rising: The Dark Angel Series: Book Two (13 page)

“Risa.” Azriel touched my elbow lightly, making me jump. “We cannot linger.”

“Okay.” I couldn’t sense the book in the cell, anyway, so I closed the door and tried the other two, with the same result.

The tunnel swept slowly around to the right and sounds began to invade the darkness. The slight drip of water, the murmur of conversation, the stir of heat through the air.

I glanced at Azriel, and he held up three fingers. I guess I had to be grateful that he hadn’t indicated that all five were present, although that did raise the question of where the other two were.

I walked on more cautiously, but no matter how much I tried to be quiet, my footsteps couldn’t help but echo in these shoes. I should have taken them off
and walked barefoot, but given the Raziq’s penchant for laying glass into their floors …

“What’s that?” a voice ahead said.

I stopped, my fists clenched. After a moment, another man said, “We’re in a fucking disused tunnel. It’s probably the goddamn rats again.”

“No, I heard something else. Something bigger.”

“Well, go investigate then,” the other man retorted. “I’m not leaving the fire.”

The other man swore, then said, “Frank, come with me.”

Heavy footsteps echoed, then light suddenly swept the wall inches from where I stood. I pressed my back against the bricks and held my breath. The light jumped away and scanned the other wall before disappearing again.

I blew out a breath, but the relief came too soon as the two men began walking toward us. The flashlight’s beam bobbled across the walls. I ducked, but not quickly enough, and the man swore again.

“Just saw someone,” he said, and stopped. I couldn’t see either man, only the brightness of their flashlight, but I could smell them. They were human—although from what I understood, most Razan were. They just enjoyed an extraordinarily long life thanks to their Aedh masters.

“Are you sure?” the other man said, his deep voice uncertain. “I sure as hell didn’t.”

“It was just a quick movement on the edge of the light, but it was there.”

“Then you yakking about it is a good way of letting them know we saw them.”

Azriel touched my shoulder lightly; when I looked
up, he motioned me to stay low. I nodded and he winked out of existence. A second later the sound of footsteps running up the tunnel—away from where I was hunkered down—echoed.

“Shit, after him,” the first man said. The two of them disappeared after Azriel, leaving me with only the man in the room up ahead. And I couldn’t avoid dealing with him—not when I had to check the room he was in.

I rose and crept forward. A warm flickering light began to infuse the darkness, and the air was decidedly warmer. I crept forward, listening intently but unable to hear anything beyond the soft murmur of conversation. TV, I decided, and wondered how the hell they got power down here, let alone reception. I pressed my back against the bricks and peered cautiously around the doorway.

He was sitting in a tattered red armchair in front of a metal barrel that had been cut in half and now had a fire burning in it. The smoke rose and fanned out, hanging like a shroud from the ceiling—a good way to die if there was no cross-ventilation, and I couldn’t actually see any. Obviously, these Razan weren’t too bright.

I reached for the Aedh, but a hand grabbed mine and it was all I could do to stop myself from screaming. But only because the wash of heat told me who it was.

I glanced at Azriel, who shook his head.
Do not,
he said, his voice crystal clear inside my mind. Obviously, the microcells weren’t an impediment to
him
reading my thoughts.
They are attuned to the Aedh and will sense it.

Well, fuck.
Why couldn’t something just be easy for a change?

I flexed my fingers, then took off my shoes and left them near the doorway. I crept forward, the old brick flooring icy under my toes. The man stirred and reached for another piece of wood, tossing it into the barrel with a clunk. I froze. The flames flared and sparks bloomed upward, briefly illuminating the ceiling before the smoke closed in again.

He settled back down and, after a moment, I crept on.

But somehow, he sensed me.

In one swift movement, he rose and swung around, a gun rising in his left hand. I dove forward, grabbed the top of the chair for balance and twisted around in midair, aiming my feet at his midriff. He jumped back, firing the gun as he did so. My feet missed his belly, but his aim was better. The bullet skimmed my left leg before tearing a chunk of flesh from my thigh. Pain curled through me but I ignored it and let go of the chair, landing in a crouch, the gun following my movements. I threw myself sideways, realized too late just how close I was to the barrel, and hit it hard. As the barrel and I spilled to the floor, Azriel took shape behind the man and grabbed the weapon. I jerked away from the fire and pushed to my feet, only to see the man flying through the air and hitting the wall with enough force to break bones. He slid down to the floor and was still.

I glanced across at Azriel, who calmly handed me the weapon. I slipped the safety into place, shoved it into the waistband of my jeans, then said, “You’re breaking the rules again, aren’t you?”

“As I said,” he replied, his expression impassive, “my quest comes first. If that man had succeeded in killing you, it would have created serious problems. How is your leg?”

I blinked at the sudden change of topic, and looked down. The bullet had torn a hole in my jeans, and blood was pulsing down my leg. Of course, the minute I became aware of it, the bloody thing began to throb like hell. I swore softly and wished—for the hundredth time in my life—that I could shift shape to heal myself. Unlike my side wound, this one wasn’t about to heal in an hour or two. I was stuck with trying to stem the flow of blood until that happened. I guess I just had to be thankful that these men were human rather than shifter or wolf. Otherwise, the damage might have been greater.

I limped around the chair and over to the Razan. After checking his pulse, I stripped off his shirt, tore it into strips, then wrapped them tightly around my thigh. Not exactly hygienic, but better than nothing.

“The guard will be out for about eight minutes,” Azriel said. “The others will be back before then. We must find the book quickly.”

“Which would be a whole lot easier if the fucking thing weren’t hidden by veils.” I paused, looking around the room, trying to find something—anything—that sparked a reaction in me. There was nothing.

I sighed in frustration, then put my shoes back on and limped out of the room. The tunnel curved on, and in the distance I could hear the footsteps of the other two men. They were heading back already. All hell would break lose once they’d found their companion. We were running out of time.

The tunnel split into three. I paused, peering into each branch intently, trying to figure out which way to go. The one to my immediate left echoed with the sound of footsteps, so there was no way I was heading down there if it could be avoided. The one straight ahead smelled stale and old, but the air in the one to the right stirred gently, and held the freshness of rain. There was an exit down there somewhere.

My gaze went back to the middle tunnel and, after a moment, I walked on. I don’t know why; it just felt right.

The tunnel’s old brick walls ran with slime, and the floor was slick with moisture. I couldn’t see it because the darkness had closed in once again, but I sure as hell could smell it—and it was
nasty.
Thankfully I wasn’t wearing my pretty new shoes, but even these older ones weren’t going to be wearable after this. If I’d had half a brain, I would have changed into boots when I’d gotten home.

Any further delay would not have been wise,
Azriel commented.

“Stop reading my goddamn thoughts,” I muttered.

No.

I glared at him. “Why the hell not?”

Because you do not tell me everything you know or suspect.

Which seemed a bit hypocritical to me, given he was guilty of the same crime, but I knew it wasn’t about to change anytime soon. “Then will you at least do one thing for me?”

If it means you will stop risking exposure with all this talking, I will seriously consider it.

“All I’m asking is that you keep your distance whenever I’m with Lucian. That is
my
time, and it has absolutely
nothing
to do with your goddamn mission.”

He looked at me, his eyes glowing with an unearthly energy. “Trust me when I say that I have absolutely
no
desire to watch your liaison with the Aedh.”

The edge in his voice made my eyebrows rise. “You don’t like him, do you?”

“I do not trust him.” His gaze slid from mine. The edge in his voice had receded a little, but it still spoke of something more than distrust.

Which was curious. “Why?”

“Because he is Aedh.”

“A fallen Aedh.”

“Exactly. The Aedh do not tear wings off lightly.”

“He’s already explained that. He hunted down and killed the people responsible for his sister’s murder.”

His gaze flicked to mine once more. “And you believe him?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because full Aedh do not live in familial groups or feel love.”

“Which doesn’t mean it can’t be true.”

He studied me for a moment, then shrugged. Oddly enough, it seemed more an angry gesture than a casual one. “I shall bow to your judgment, as I have no knowledge of this Aedh.” And didn’t really want any, from the sound of it. “Now can we keep quiet and concentrate on finding this book before the priests return?”

I shut my mouth and walked on, my footsteps deadened by the slimy concrete. The air became fouler, clogging my lungs with its putrid stench. “God,” I murmured, raising a hand to my nose and pinching it shut. It didn’t help a whole lot—the smell still clawed at my throat and seared my lungs. “It smells like something massive has died down here.”

Azriel didn’t say anything. Maybe he was hoping I would follow suit. The tunnel widened slightly and my steps slowed as a sense of greater space hit me. But the darkness was still intense, and I couldn’t see any farther than my hand.

But I didn’t need to, because I could feel something. It was a presence—an energy—that tingled across my skin like fire and made the dragon on my arm stir and writhe within my flesh. It was a weird sensation.

“I think it’s here,” I said softly.

Azriel drew his sword and Valdis flared to life, blue flames caressing her razor-sharp sides before spreading out across the darkness.

Dark shapes scurried away from the light, and the source of the smell soon became obvious. A body lay in the center of what once must have been a wastewater junction. I couldn’t immediately tell if it was old or young, because most of its features had been eaten away by the rats. Its clothes were in tatters, but the remnants looked old and worn, and its hair—or what remained of it—was shot with gray.

A vagrant, I thought, continuing to hold my nose as I walked forward. The closer I got, the more the dragon writhed, and the more my stomach turned. The rats had been feasting on the vagrant’s body for a while, because intestines had spilled out over the
old brickwork, gleaming like sausages in Valdis’s unearthly light.

“Do you still feel the presence of the book?” Azriel said softly.

I thrust up my arm so he could see the Dušan. She moved serpent-like around my arm, her eyes gleaming with an eerie lilac light.

“Interesting,” he said. “The Dušan do not usually react to stimuli outside the gray fields.”

I didn’t reply, concentrating on the Dušan as I held out my arm and swung around in a slow circle. Her twisting became more intense as I pointed to the right wall. I stepped over the vagrant’s legs and walked on. The Dušan’s reaction became stronger and stronger, until my flesh burned with her energy.

I stopped. The only thing in front of me was a wall … or was it? My father had said the book was veiled, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was cloaked in shadows. I ran my hand over the wet stained wall, searching for any unusual markings in the cold bricks. My fingers brushed against a perfectly round indentation and the Dušan’s head swung around, staring at it.

That had to be it.

I stuck a finger into the hole. Something sharp pricked my finger and I instinctively jerked back. A droplet of blood beaded the tip, but it didn’t actually look as if anything had bitten me. I frowned, remembering my father’s words.
Only one of the blood will be able to find or see it.
I shoved the finger back into the hole. After a heartbeat, there was a soft clicking noise and a small rectangular section of the wall receded, revealing a small chamber. In it sat the book.

I reached inside and picked it up, but the minute I did, there was a huge whooshing sound and three metal gates dropped down from the ceiling, forming a very solid cage.

The bastards had set a trap, and I’d just sprung it.

A
S SOON AS THE THICK METAL BARS HAD
clanged home, a rainbow shimmer flared up around them, quickly encasing us on all four sides as well as above. I knew that shimmer—it had been present in the cell, too. It was a veil of magic that prevented me from reaching for the Aedh. To do so would only send me crashing to the floor in writhing agony—or so I’d discovered the last time they had me trapped.