Demon Forged (55 page)

It was an endless knot that she couldn’t untangle. But she did not know if it was time to draw her sword and cut through it.

Her eyes searched the darkness. Fear gripped her throat in its ragged claws. As frightened as she was of the nephilim waiting, the consequences of taking the wrong path terrified her far more.

Maybe Khavi didn’t know that the tunnel was tighter than a dragon’s ass.

Irena turned to Alejandro. “We must decide—”

“We go back,” he said.

“Back,” Alice agreed.

Irena laughed, nodding. “Yes. But let us do what we can here first.” She glanced at Alice. “Did Jake give to you any of those missile launchers?”

Alice’s relieved expression flattened into a disbelieving look. “That question is just slightly more stupid than asking if he gave me only
one
.” Smiling, she joined Irena at the mouth of the tunnel. “Do you want to collapse it?”

“Or worse. I do not know how long a door would hold against them if there are many.”

“I have worse,” Alice said. “Namely, a tactical nuclear device.”

Irena stared at her.

The Guardian shrugged her thin shoulders. “Jake considered using it out there, but he didn’t know if exploding one against the ceiling would weaken the barrier.”

Irena wasn’t certain if shock or amusement had prevented Alejandro from replying. But now he recovered, and said, “What is the yield?”

“It is small—only ten tons. About two city blocks.”

“On a timer?”

“Yes.”

Irena found her voice. “And so this is your plan—we set it and run? But what if they take hold of it first and toss it back at us?”

“We carry it farther down this tunnel,” Alejandro said, gesturing toward the darkness beyond Irena. “We can see that it narrows. When it widens again, you create a steel box for it, wide enough that they can’t move the container beyond the narrow gap, and with the metal embedded into the stone so they cannot vanish the box into their cache without first hacking it free.
Then
we set it and run.”

Alice nodded her agreement. “If we take it to that depth, we’ll also be safer once we are outside.”

How could this sound reasonable? Either it
was
reasonable or they were desperate. Perhaps it was both.

“Get it ready, then.” Irena crouched in the mouth of the tunnel and looked into the shadows. “And I will watch your back.”

She glanced around once; Alice worked quickly over a device she’d taken out of a green barrel. They decided upon a five-second timer, with Alice in the lead to guide them around her traps as they ran outside. Alejandro only agreed to let Irena bring up the rear after she pointed out that, if something kept them in the tunnel longer than five seconds, she could create a thick steel shield to protect them.

She did not know if it would—she knew nothing of nuclear devices. She only knew that if they ran late, she would take the brunt of the explosion.

Alice finished, drew a deep breath, and vanished the device into her cache. “We are ready.”

The shadows in the corridor deepened. Irena couldn’t remember when she had last seen such darkness. She listened for heartbeats, heard only theirs. The human scent grew stronger. The tunnel narrowed. Her heart thumped when she heard a scrape behind her. Only Alice’s boot, and yet knowing didn’t ease her fear.

The tunnel wall angled wider. Alejandro watched the almost-complete darkness as Irena quickly formed the box. Alice called in her device, slipped it inside. They looked at each other. Alice reached forward, turned a key, touched a button, Irena sealed the box—and they ran.

The chamber passed in a blur. Alice raced ahead, springing traps with her blade, darting around others. Five seconds was an eternity. The screams from outside became louder and louder. White light flashed down the tunnel. Thunder crashed as Alice breached the entrance. Alejandro turned, grabbed Irena’s hand, leapt for Alice. They smashed to the ground.

Irena formed a thick, domed shield, surrounding them in six inches of steel. They waited. One second, two, three—

The steel shuddered beneath them, as if the mountain had been rocked by a small earthquake. A tiny tremor followed. Then all was still.

Irena lifted her head. Her fingers shook. She untangled Alice’s skirts from her legs. “I expected worse.”

“As did I.” Alejandro rose onto his knees, ducking his head beneath the low dome.

“We shall shower Jake with our disappointment.” Alice took a deep breath. “We’re blind.”

Yes. Irena called in her knives, crouching. Alejandro brought in the heavy swords she’d made him. She waited for Alice’s long-bladed naginata to appear in the Guardian’s hands before she said, “On three, I’ll unfold the dome, and give us a wall. The mountain should be at our backs. As soon as we are on our feet, I’ll vanish the steel. On three.”

She counted, then rolled her Gift through the metal. The dome opened like an oyster shell, flattening and rising to form a wide shield in front of them.

Something hit the other side. Before Irena could react, the wall slammed into her. She smashed into granite. Bones snapped—not hers. Beside her, Alice’s eyes were closed, her body limp. Pinned by the steel wall facing Alice, Irena couldn’t see Olek. She tried to push forward. Her feet slipped. On blood?

She struck with her Gift. Steel spikes stabbed outward; Irena heard a feminine gasp of pain. The pressure of the wall eased. Irena folded the thick steel sheet, snapping it closed like an Iron Maiden. She missed.

Alice crumpled to the ground. Black dust and smoke filled the air around them, above them, obscuring the frozen ceiling. Only flashes of lightning and the never-ending screams penetrated the dense cloud. Irena vanished the steel wall.

Black dust streaking her beautiful face like tears, a sword in her hand, Anaria lunged out of the darkness toward Irena.

Olek got there first. The blade meant for Irena’s heart stabbed through his stomach.

Irena caught the tip as it pierced his back. Her Gift raged through the sword, peeling thin wires from the blade. They climbed Anaria’s sword arm. Irena wound them tight, biting into skin and muscle.

Anaria froze.

Her chest heaving, Irena slipped her right arm around Olek’s waist. She couldn’t see Anaria’s face. She couldn’t release the sword. “Let him go.”

A sob caught in Anaria’s voice. “You killed my children.”

I would kill them all.
Irena didn’t dare say it. Not when Anaria still held the sword. Not when her strength could tear dull steel up through Olek’s heart, not when Anaria’s speed far exceeded Irena’s. Even if she softened the steel, the grigori could punch through Olek’s heart.

She did not know how to respond, what would get them out of this.

Olek did. And despite the sword through his gut, when he spoke his words were the smoothest silk. “You will not kill her, Anaria.”

“No?” The reply devolved into a laugh, high and pained.

“No. And if you vow you will not, I will tell you the name of the demon who murdered Zakril.”

The laugh stopped. The sword quivered against Irena’s bloodied hand. “Who?”

Olek waited.

“If you speak true, I will not kill her,” Anaria promised.

Irena’s body trembled. Olek bargained with Anaria as he would with a demon. “Him,” she said. “You won’t kill
him
.”

“Her,” Olek said firmly, and before Irena could reply—“Rael murdered your husband. Rael stabbed a sword through Zakril’s chest, pinning him to a stone wall. He pounded iron spikes through Zakril’s wings, and used his desecrated body to leave a message for your children, so they would know where to find you.”

“No.” The sword jerked. Olek tensed, but didn’t make a sound; Irena clenched her teeth against the terrified scream rising in her throat. “I can see lies, and Rael has never lied to me. He has said he is a friend to me.”

“If you also see the truth, you know that
I
do not lie.”

Anaria’s breath shuddered once, twice. Her reply held less conviction, yet more determination—as if she were trying to convince herself. “He has
never
lied to me.”

“Then perhaps you have never asked him the right questions.” Olek’s voice hardened. “Starting, perhaps, with his definition of friendship.”

Movement flashed at the corner of her eye. A winged shadow passed through the dark cloud. Irena couldn’t determine size or shape.

Olek must have seen it, too. His heart beat faster. His weight shifted, almost imperceptibly—preparing to move.

When she spoke, Anaria’s harmonious voice had lost all emotion. “Do you have any regrets, Guardian?”

Irena stiffened, prepared to liquefy the sword. She searched her cache. An anvil. A rock. It did not matter—
this could not happen.

“Just one,” Olek said. “And enjoying every moment of what Michael does to you now isn’t it.”

A dark form streaked out of the cloud, slammed into Anaria’s side. Her sword ripped from Olek’s stomach.

Michael. He flew headlong into the mountainside, smashing Anaria face-first into the granite. His face rigid with fury, he wrapped his arm around her neck from behind, caught her in an unbreakable hold.

Irena didn’t understand a word Michael shouted at his sister, but his rage needed no translation. Anaria kicked at the granite; the ground beneath Irena’s feet shivered.

She turned back to Olek and formed her wings. “If they begin to fight, we don’t want to be caught in the path of it.”

“Yes.”

With swords in his hands, he stood over her as she bent to Alice. She lifted the Guardian against her chest. Alice’s skirts and side were slick, wet. Irena’s heart clenched as she searched for the source of the blood. Her hand came away clean.

Not blood. Not blood.
Water.

She sniffed her hand and looked up at Olek. “There’s water. Sea water.”

“From where?”

Irena stood with Alice in her arms, her gaze scanning the ground. Drops over there, splattered as if from high above, traveling away from the cave entrance. Farther away, another drop, and another. But here, beneath Alice, there hadn’t just been drops but a puddle. As if someone flying had spilled the water, and—still wet—had left more drops in his wake.

She glanced up into the sky just as Michael shouted her name. A huge shadow arrowed toward them from high above, taking shape at terrifying speed. A shimmering blue-green dragon, its black wings tucked, its talons outstretched, like a hawk preparing to snatch a rabbit from a field.

Fear speared through her, hot and thick. She reached for Olek, pulled in steel for a shield—

The dragon vanished.

Irena blinked.

“The portal,” Olek murmured. “Holy Mother of God.”

Michael flung Anaria away, ran toward them.

Give me Alice. I will inform the others, and we will be right behind you,
he signed, even as he roared a single word that drowned out the screams.

Alejandro dove through the portal into cold water. The still-healing gash in his stomach burned. He tasted salt, and vanished his wings when the weight dragged at his speed. Stone ruins lay half-submerged in the sand around him. Somewhere among the ruins, Anaria must have written the symbols to open the portal. He would not stop to find them now.

Above, he spotted the dragon, swimming with the undulating grace of a serpent toward the moonlight piercing the surface of the water.

Fewer people would be on the sea, but the ruins suggest they probably weren’t far from land. He glanced over at Irena. Though she’d come through the portal after Alejandro, her powerful arm strokes had already caught her up to him. He couldn’t see her feet through the churning of the water she kicked.

Her knife was clamped in her teeth. Her eyes glowed a brilliant green.

A hunt, like they’d never had before—one they could not lose.

The dragon skimmed along the surface of the sea before lifting into the air. Distance blurred its shape into a dark smear.

Irena’s scream of rage boiled from between her teeth.

Michael appeared in front of them. He reached for Irena’s hand, grabbed Alejandro’s. They teleported out of the water into the sky.

Alejandro fought the disorientation, formed his wings again. The dragon flew below.

Irena dropped without wings. Michael circled around beneath the creature as Irena landed on its massive back. Calling in her saber, she lifted the weapon high and drove the blade straight down into the dragon’s shoulder.

The steel snapped against the scales. The dragon twisted its body, rolling in the air. The pale green scales of its belly and chest were exposed for a brief second. Alejandro dove. The dragon changed direction mid-twist and he rocketed past it. From beneath the dragon, he saw Irena lose her seat, scramble for a grip on its glossy blue hide, and slip. The dragon back-flipped and snapped enormous teeth at her as she fell.