Fallen Angel of Mine (9 page)

The walls of a narrow tunnel surrounded
me. I tried to grip them, but mold and slime coated the surface,
mocking my feeble attempts to save myself. I broke free of the
water with a loud splash. The achingly cold clamp around my ankle
vanished. I tumbled along a rocky passage, each jolt sending a wave
of agony into my naked skin as I slid along it until the upward
slope of the passage arrested my momentum. Gasping each breath of
air like the treasure it was, I pushed myself up and examined the
surrounding passage.

A warm yellow glow illuminated the
tunnel. It reminded me of the small square room and I wondered what
purpose it served. But even more immediate on my mind was the
location of my insidious-looking kidnapper, the black tentacle, or
whatever the hell it was. Had it gone back after Elyssa
now?

"Dah nah?" croaked a tiny voice from
the direction of the water where it lapped against the
downward-sloping sides of the tunnel that, presumably, led back to
the cavern.

Cold, awful dread snaked into my
abdomen, and I backed away as a small black creature with the body
of a chubby toddler dragged itself from the water and stood. Its
arms reached out as it gained footing and limped toward me. A huge
head tottered on a thin, elongated neck while its body wobbled on
unsure, knobby, and malformed feet. The tiny body shimmered with an
ultraviolet halo. The aura flickered and danced, occasionally
giving the creature the appearance of having insubstantial wings,
misty shadows that spread behind it and vanished. I wondered if my
eyes were playing tricks or if this creature was a demonic cherub,
crawling from the depths of hell to scare my pants off. A black
orifice opened in the smooth, featureless surface of the
head.

"Dah nah," it said in a whimpering
moan.

I screamed like a little girl and
backed away. The dark cherub wobbled toward me, little nubby arms
grasping.

"What the hell are you?" I
shouted.

Cupid's evil little brother made a
high-pitched screech and kept coming.

I turned and raced down the tunnel, my
bare feet slapping painfully against uneven rock, until I came to a
branch where the tunnel floor smoothed out from the rough-hewn
passage behind me. I could go forward, left, or right, but if any
way was better, I had no clue. Maybe one of the passages was a way
out. Maybe none were. My chances of guessing correctly didn't seem
too great, though. I went left. If my sense of direction wasn't
totally messed up, I should be moving away from the granite quarry
and maybe, just maybe, toward an exit. I could always believe in
miracles, right? My brain presented the cold, hard math, reminding
me a thirty-three point three percent chance of guessing the
correct passage likely meant a sixty-six point six percent chance a
horrible, gruesome death awaited me in a dead end down this winding
corridor.

I told my brain to kindly shut up and
leave me alone.

The tunnel curved around a long bend
and ended in a rectangular room the size of the school gymnasium.
Bands of silver metal set in perfect rows encircled sections of the
room, each one set apart from the other by about five feet or so.
At the center of some circles stood black arches. Some lay
shattered or in crumbled ruins, others were completely missing.
Only a handful looked whole. To my left stood a lone arch, a large
one easily three times the size of the others. Where they measured
ten feet tall by the same distance wide, this arch towered over
them, the silver circle around it claiming far more real estate.
Not only was it larger, but the coloring was bizarre—snow white
veined with shiny obsidian.

"Please be a way out," I said, not
caring if the thing was orange with purple polka dots.

"Dah nah!" echoed a tortured scream
from the tunnel.

I rushed into the room.

Each of the intact arches looked shiny
and black, just as I remembered the Obsidian Arch. It was like a
huge terminal of the things, maybe a transport hub. Perhaps I could
use one and close the silver circle around it like Shelton had
taught me. Somehow, make it take me where I wanted to
go.

A tiny whimpering sound echoed from the
tunnel mouth. I turned to see my little stalker had found me. It
staggered along on its ghastly legs, the yellowish light around it
shimmering with darkness. I could probably lure it to the back of
the room and circle around it. Maybe make it back to the water, but
then what? If it was the same black ooze that had brought me here,
I wouldn't get far before it caught me and dragged me back. I
didn't have a clue where the tunnel to the river was, having lost
all sense of bearing during my capture.

The arches were my only chance. I
mentally flipped a coin and chose the undamaged arch farthest from
the tunnel and the little horror chasing me. During my mad dash to
the back of the room, I spotted a map of the world centered above a
raised platform and set inside the granite wall. I looked behind
me. The toddler from hell remained well behind, its tiny legs not
meant for fast travel. The map might be important. It might tell me
where to go. I detoured between the arches and raced to what looked
like the front of the huge space.

When I reached the map, it turned out
to be much larger up close, bordering on ten feet tall and twice as
wide. Tiny silver stars dotted the surface. The outlines I would
usually associate with the borders of countries bore no
similarities to the ones I knew. In fact, the landmasses looked
different, though they were close enough in shape to be
familiar.

Symbols, resembling something like an
ancient alphabet, lined the wall to the left of the map. I
recognized some of them. I'd seen them in one of Shelton's
spells—one he'd written in Cyrinthian. If Nightliss spoke the
language, did that mean her people built this place? A gurgling
wail echoed from nearby. My butt cheeks clenched. I had no time to
waste before nightmare baby, slow as he was, caught up with
me.

I touched the first symbol. A gentle
chime sounded, echoing off the hard walls. Keeping my finger on the
cool metal, I looked around the room and saw a broken arch
highlighted by a glowing circle of white light from the surface of
the silver band set into the floor around it. When I removed my
finger, the light stayed on while the stars on the map pulsed
white.

I touched a star in North America. Two
chimes sounded and the other stars on the map winked out, leaving
only the symbol to the left side of the map and the star on the map
glowing.

I touched the still-lit symbol. A
klaxon trumpeted, causing me to flinch, and the star and symbol
winked off. I ran my finger down the odd symbols, touching each one
to activate the light around their assigned arch, hoping to find
the symbol that highlighted an unbroken structure. The map was
positioned perfectly in the room so I could see each arch light up.
But some symbols didn't activate the light over any arches, and the
ones that did revealed only broken ones.

I glanced around the room and saw the
glistening shape of the cherub wobbling its way through the long
rows of arches. I still had a minute or two before it reached
me.

At the bottom of the rows of Cyrinthian
symbols, I noticed a larger icon like a solid circle with two lines
angling from the top in a 'V' shape. I was pretty sure I knew which
arch it went to. I touched it.

Instead of a gentle chime, a deep
klaxon note bellowed across the room and the white arch glowed.
White and black energy streaked through the air in all directions,
mesmerizing me for a brief moment before another cherubic wail
slapped me in the face. I glanced at the map. None of the stars
were lit. The devil only knew where that arch led.

Something scraped against the floor
behind me.

I spun and yelped in alarm as the
cherub lunged for me. I jerked back, barely avoiding its grasp, but
a knobby finger trailed down my bare leg, setting every cell on
fire with intense cold. Nausea twisted my stomach and cold sweat
burst from every pore on my body. The creature's face met the
ground with a sick wet thud. I backed away, wondering if I could
kill it with a sure-footed stomp. It jerked back to its feet with
an ease that belied its disproportionate body. Shrieking, hands
spread to its sides, fingers crooked like little claws, it came at
me. Smoky wings flickered over its shoulders and I could almost see
a crazed, maniacal face trapped behind the smooth oily surface if
its head.

The sound echoed. A chorus of shrieks
answered. I backed away in wide-eyed horror at the sight of dozens
more of the creatures shambling through the rows of arches. My own
shriek of terror joined with the cherubs' and I streaked away, not
stopping until I nearly collided with an arch in the far back of
the room. I pressed my thumb to the silver circuit and willed it
closed. After a couple of tries, a crackle in the air and the
pressure of an immense amount of magic welling around me told me
I'd done it.

My body felt as though it was in the
middle of a cloud of static electricity. Apparently, the power here
was extremely concentrated. I had no idea what a ley line looked
like but I pictured giant glowing conduits of magical power humming
beneath the ground.

The symbol in the floor next to this
arch looked like a circle with multiple lines crisscrossing it,
crossing the edges. Nothing matched it on the huge map. In other
words, I had no idea where it went, if anywhere.

The first glistening cherub reached the
circle. I jumped back, cursing. The creature bounced off and fell
on its back, squealing and shrieking in a miserable voice, sending
needles racing up my spine.

"Dah nah!" it wailed.

The others answered in the same
words.

I shivered violently, gasping deep
breaths to calm myself. The little freaks couldn't get me in here,
but I had to find a way to activate this thing. If this arch really
didn't go anywhere, I was screwed. There was another possibility to
the odd symbol, though. Maybe these arches weren't connected to the
map for a reason. If this place really was a transport hub where
beings came from all over, maybe they had to build something that
was easy for the average Joe to use. The other rows might be for
newbies while these arches were for advanced users. Maybe the lines
on the circle meant these could go anywhere. Or maybe I was wrong
and these arches weren't finished. Maybe a void of death waited at
their terminus.

For all I knew, this row of arches was
where they disposed of trash, and the circle was a garbage
compactor, like the one on the Death Star. "This isn't Return of
the Jedi," I hissed, hoping to the Force I was right.

I slapped my cheek to snap myself from
the daze of indecisiveness.

More cherubs crowded the circle while
newcomers threaded through the arches. The place was crawling with
them. I had to face facts. There was no escaping this circle. Not
without using the arch. I turned back to it, forcing myself to
ignore the shrieks and wails and the possibility the circle might
collapse from the weight of bodies pressing against it.

Unfortunately, there were no big green
buttons or easy-to-follow instructions mounted on a placard nearby,
so I did the next best thing by pointing a finger at the arch and
saying, "Activate!" When that didn't work, I tried a few other
words, some of them very descriptive of my situation and not at all
suited for mixed company. Shelton had told me several times intent
and will were important in making something work right. Perhaps I
just had to focus on somewhere specific I needed to go. Doing that
while panic streaked through my veins and fear twined a cold coil
around my guts seemed impossible.

Standing halfway between the arch and
the silver ring, I concentrated on the arch again and said, "Take
me home."

An azure string of power lanced from
one side of the arch to the other, running up the black stone like
something in a mad-scientist's lab. I jumped up and whooped as the
air between the arch flickered from black to gray to white. The
gruesome baby things screeched and pressed against the invisible
circle, throwing tantrums as they shouted what probably passed for
obscenities in scary baby language.

"Hurry up, stupid arch!" I
said.

Images of different places flashed
across the arch like a slide show, but too fast to follow. Then
they slowed, each one lingering a little longer than the last. I
saw my old house, police tape across the smashed front door where
hellhounds had burst in and a possum taking a poo on the carpet. I
saw Shelton's underground lair flash past, my father and Shelton,
each with full-to-bursting duffel bags in hand, making for the
exit, but the scene vanished before I could even think to leap
through. Next, a blonde woman appeared, kneeling before a blonde
girl, gripping her by the arms and talking in low tones as tears
streamed down their faces. My heart stopped as I recognized my
mother. And the girl—she had to be my sister!

I screamed, "Ivy!" and lunged forward.
Before I could step through the circle, the scene blinked away and
another replaced it. Seconds passed before I realized this one
might be the last. Ten feet away, Elyssa climbed from a river,
coughing water from her lungs as Kassallandra knelt at her side and
patted her back. Two hellhounds, including the massive Malkesh
stood nearby, their eyes gleaming in the dusk.