Soul Bound (35 page)

Cal marched ahead of them, his square body wired with tension. “What I’d like to know is how they got their hands on angel’s blood.”

No one had the answer, so no one bothered to reply.

They descended a steep staircase, where the darkness grew so thick it smothered them. Lia tightened her grip on Jace’s hand. “I can’t see where I’m going.”

Regan whipped out a flashlight from the bag she had strapped around her waist and handed it to her. “I figured you might need this.”

Lia flicked the switch, and a trembling beam cut a swath in the gloom. Dust danced in the light like a cloud of frantic moths. “What’s that smell?” she asked.

“Sulfur.” Cal’s pace never slowed. “An Ancient’s energy is very concentrated, born of the underworld itself. God refused to grant souls to the offspring of the fallen, so Sataniel took advantage of the opportunity and fashioned his own brand of life-sustaining energy.”

Marcus suddenly stopped. “Down there,” he said.

Lia aimed her light at the floor, where a trapdoor loomed.

Cal crouched and touched the weathered wood, his features harder and more ragged than the stone walls surrounding them. “This is it. The entrance to the catacombs.”

Lia’s beam cast dancing shadows on the ground. “I still can’t believe they extend this far from Portland.”

“Distance is of no consequence down here,” Cal explained. “Miles can be traveled in minutes. Space is merely an illusion.” His boots scraped the mud-caked floor as he ventured forward. “Catacombs are everywhere, a vast, undiscovered city created in the antediluvian world by the Nephilim. This is where they once kept their prisoners.”

Cal swung the trapdoor open with flourish, only to be greeted by a pile of dirt. He grabbed a fistful of earth, glowered in disgust. “He’s gone. We weren’t fast enough. The entrance has been sealed.”

Regan toed the dirt as if testing it. “It’s still soft. We just missed him. How did he know we were coming?”

Bleak understanding turned Cal’s pale features to ash. “Kyros.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

At Cal’s command, everyone but Marcus promptly retreated and returned to their vehicles. The Kleptopsychs who’d stayed behind to give their leader a chance to escape had all fallen, their loyalty rewarded by death.

The Watchers hadn’t fared much better. Dozens had lost their lives, and for what purpose? Athanatos once again remained at large, free to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting world.

With somber acceptance, Marcus sprinkled the bodies of friends and foes alike with gasoline, then set them on fire, obliterating every last trace of the battle. He didn’t bother with goodbyes, though sometimes he felt compelled to utter a prayer or two. Even the soulless deserved a chance at redemption.

Orange flames licked the sky as he returned to the Escalade, where Cal and the others waited. When Marcus was safely ensconced in the passenger seat, Cal drove away in stony silence. No one knew what awaited them back at Cascade Head, and no one dared speculate. The possibilities were too dark to contemplate.

Eventually, trees gathered in the distance, a thick veil beyond which the Watchers’ complex hunkered, skillfully concealed. Taking the familiar road that would lead them to the place they’d called home for over a year now, Cal drove up the steep incline. When the buildings came into view, the silence grew thicker still, if that were possible.

Pressing on the accelerator, Cal narrowed the distance between them and the main building, then slammed on the brakes. The second the Escalade came to a halt, he bolted from the driver’s seat and plowed his way across the shadow-drenched field to the door.

Unlike his leader, Marcus was reluctant to exit. Maybe he just wasn’t ready to face what they’d find.

“I’m not sure I want to go in.” Regan echoed his thoughts. “If Cal’s right and Kyros escaped—” She shuddered.

“We can’t stay out here forever.” With Cal gone, it was up to Marcus to set the example, so he ignored his misgivings and stepped out of the SUV, his army boots crunching the pebble-strewn ground.

Regan gathered her courage and followed his lead, with Lia and Jace not far behind.

One by one, vehicles dutifully lined up in back of the Escalade and stilled. A deathly hush claimed the atmosphere as the engines died in quick succession. When the drivers emerged, Marcus was struck by how many Hybrids they’d lost today. Fifteen SUVs had left the complex earlier that morning, all packed to the hilt. Now no more than one or two Watchers emerged from each vehicle.

And the death toll didn’t end there.

When they entered the building, the massacre they uncovered surpassed anything they could have envisioned. In the living quarters—the safe haven within which the children and the women assigned to watch them had gathered to wait for the fighters to return—an endless sea of bodies littered the floor, all slain.

Marcus crouched beside a boy of no more than ten. The kid’s eyes were open, staring vacantly at the ceiling. Doing him a courtesy, he lowered the boy’s lids with his thumb and forefinger.

Behind him Lia Benson began to cry, her soft whimpers expressing the grief none of the others could.

Cal stood in a distant corner, staring at the macabre scene with a look Marcus recognized all too well, one he’d seen on his leader’s face countless times before—guilt. Cal blamed himself for failing to protect his followers, even though he couldn’t have anticipated the events that were to unfold.

“Clean this place up,” Cal ordered his troops in a tone so emotionless, he could’ve passed for a pureblood. With a last solemn look at the fallen, he vacated the room, leaving them behind to deal with the aftermath of a slaughter that failed to leave even the soulless unmoved.

Despite the many times Lia had stared death in the face, it still had the power to rattle her. Instinctively reverting to her role as doctor, she checked the vitals of all those who had fallen, hoping one or more had been spared. None had a pulse. No soft flutter throbbed against her fingertips. No rush of air swept across her open palm.

Gone. All of them.

It made no difference that they weren’t technically human. To her they looked like women and children, innocents, born to finish a war they hadn’t begun.

A comforting hand applied pressure to her back. Lia looked up at Jace. “It’s so brutal, so pointless. All of it.” Her tone failed to impart the turmoil raging within. It was as lifeless as the countless bodies scattered at her feet.

“War usually is.”

Her gaze locked with his, and she saw everything she felt reflected in his eyes. “How do we begin to fix this?”

Jace crouched beside her, draping an arm around her shoulders to center her. “We can’t. There’s nothing we can do to bring them back. Not this time.”

She understood. Each and every one of those slain today had been given a second chance. Now death had come to collect a debt that was long overdue.

Lia swiped at her eyes and stood abruptly to be gathered in a fierce hug.

“If I hadn’t let Cal and Regan convince me to bring you along—” His voice cracked, and he stopped talking and merely held her.

“I’m safe,” she reassured him.

“No, you’re not. Not as long as you’re with me.”

Lia didn’t get the chance to dispute his claim. Regan trudged up to them. “Any of them still breathing?” she asked.

Her heart heavy with regret, Lia shook her head.

Regan threaded her fingers through her auburn mass of hair. “Looks like Kyros took out Drake, the Watcher assigned to guard his cell. Then he raided the armory, where we keep our supply of angel’s blood.” She crouched beside one of the bodies, her expression bleak and analytical. “He grabbed everything he could before making his way to the living quarters, where he proceeded to cut down the children and the handful of women who’d elected to stay behind.”

Lia’s stomach clenched. “How could anyone be capable of such evil?”

“Kleptopsychs have no conscience,” Regan reminded her. “Their only goal is survival.”

Jace kneaded his brows in confusion. “There’s something I just don’t get. When we left, Kyros was locked away. How did he manage to get loose, take out everyone here, then make it back to The Beach Palace in time to warn his father?”

“He traveled by way of the catacombs,” Regan told him. “Like I said, time is warped down there. While it took us over an hour to drive to Oceanside, Kyros made it there in minutes. That means there’s another entrance not too far from here. Unfortunately, it could be anywhere.”

A mournful pause followed, while they all stood gazing blandly at the lifeless bodies. Regan suddenly flung two of them over her shoulders and stood.

Lia seized the other woman’s arm. “What are you doing?”

“We can’t keep them here. There’s a place out back where we bury our dead.”

It took Lia several seconds to unclench her fingers. Dropping her arm to her side, she nodded meekly.

“I’ll help,” Jace offered, then shot a worried glance Lia’s way. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Do what you need to do. I’ll be fine.”

He got right to work, while Lia stood back and watched dejectedly as the room slowly cleared. In time all signs of the slaughter disappeared, save for the vivid image it had permanently etched in her memory.

Deep within their hidden world, Diane snaked her way toward Athanatos’s underground quarters. When Kyros had returned to warn him of the Watchers’ imminent attack, Athanatos had retreated to the intricate web of tunnels beneath The Beach Palace. A select group of soldiers had been dispatched to deal with the intrusion and distract the Watchers, while Diane had been sent to complete a mission of her own.

One that had gone extremely well.

She was high on adrenaline as she burst into Athanatos’s private chamber, a vast cell furnished with eighteenth-century pieces of the highest quality—a gilded velvet chair, a marble-top walnut commode, the Georgian four-poster bed she longed to share.

“You asked to see me, my lord?” The words escaped her lips in a breathless rush.

Athanatos stood near the bed, his back turned to her, his wide shoulders square and rigid. “Come in, Diahann.” He slowly pivoted toward her, and the sight of his intense black eyes made lust instantly coil between her legs. “I hear your mission was a success.”

The satisfaction that traveled through her was as close to pleasure as she could get. “I drowned the place, as you requested. It’s probably all over the news by now.” With a seductive sway of her hips, she boldly advanced toward him. “Lia Benson will get the message loud and clear.”

“Good. Kyros suspects she’s the carrier.”

“Is that why Cutler bruised?”

“Yes. He draws his strength from her, which makes it imperative that we break her if we’re to prove the prophecy false. To do that, we need to destroy everything she loves.” Athanatos glided closer, cupped her face with his wide palm. “Tonight, Diahann, we’ve taken our first step toward victory.” He stroked her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I want to know everything about your attack. Don’t leave out a single detail.”

She closed her eyes and sank into his touch. “First, I sealed all the exits.” His fingers raked through her hair, and she bit back a moan. “Then I summoned the wave from the depths of Willamette River. It crested a hundred feet in the air at a speed of five hundred miles an hour. Then I released it, unleashing a thousand tons of water upon the place and flooding every last room from floor to ceiling.”

Athanatos grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled until she was forced to angle her chin. His hard, broad chest grazed her breasts in the most tantalizing caress. Every painfully neglected nerve ending in her body sparked to attention. “Keep talking.”

“They all drowned.” Her breathing grew ragged as molten heat shot through her bloodstream. “The water couldn’t escape, and neither could they.”

He pushed her until she stumbled backward. With a growl, he pinned her to the wall. Instinctively, Diane arched her hips until his erection dug into her belly. “The media will be in a frenzy.”

“Let them.”

“But we risk discovery—”

“The humans will find a plausible explanation. And if they don’t, they’ll simply blame it on the weather.” He rubbed against her until the pressure in her loins became unbearable.

A whimper tore from her throat. She couldn’t formulate another thought. All she could think about was feeling him inside her, filling her. “Please. I can’t stand it anymore. Please—”

His lips found hers, desperate and hungry. His tongue explored her mouth, plundered and possessed. Diane nearly melted from the sweet agony of it. She wrapped her legs around his waist and angled her hips forward. He was hot and hard and ready for her. Why had he waited so long?

He tore the clothing from her body. Before she had a chance to draw breath, his hands were everywhere—on her breasts, her butt, the legs she had clasped around him. She reached down and unzipped his pants, stroking the tip of his need with eager fingers. An animalistic grunt rumbled in his chest.

His body went stone still, then he entered her with a violent thrust that wrenched a startled gasp from her. His heat engulfed her, filled her from the inside out, until she was convinced she would burst into flames. It had been so long since she’d experienced this, so long since her body had been coaxed to life by skilled fingers and a heated mouth. If she could have kept him inside her forever, she would have.

Passion snowballed until neither could breathe. Then pleasure submerged them as effectively as any wave she could’ve conjured from the sea. To a creature deprived of emotion, physical gratification was a beautiful thing, as addictive as the most potent drug. Even after the bliss subsided, she held on to him, held on to the pleasant hum in her blood.

For the first time in decades, Diane was at peace.

“You’ve done well, Diahann,” he whispered next to her ear, right before he withdrew and briskly zipped his pants. Turning his back to her, he crossed to the other side of the chamber, where he’d been standing when she’d arrived. “You can go now.”