Taken (Ava Delaney #4) (29 page)

“Another
you.”

My heart
chilled, but I put on a shaky smile. “Hey, after this is over, how
about you and me go sightseeing? I’ll show you everything you’ve
missed.”

That seemed to
cheer him up, but I couldn’t shake what he had told me. What did it
even mean? I needed to get Eddie back on my side if I was going up
against the Council, if only to stop him from influencing someone
who might be like me.

Peter and Carl
were annoyed about being left out of the latest fight, and both
were speechless when I explained what exactly had happened.

“Why am I even
surprised?” Peter asked. “Emmett could have been one of them, and I
would have never known.” He choked up a little, turning away from
us.

I reached out
for his hand, and he let me take it. He let me share his pain, and
I knew how to comfort him. It was a breakthrough for both of us.
Carl watched with sad eyes as Peter leaned into me. I felt every
ounce of Peter’s pain because it was righteous. It was the way we
should have been feeling. The Council had no right, and they had to
go. How was another story.

“What did
Esther say?” Carl asked.

“She seemed to
be getting with the programme.” I shook my head. “They live in a
different world, have a different mentality, all of them. They
don’t understand what it is to be human. If that angel really did
tell my grandmother to make me hate evil, then he did a good job
because I see it in them.”

“Sometimes I
think he intended you to hate humans,” Carl said.

I looked up at
him expectantly.

“Well, it was
human suffering you went through. I mean, humans are the ones who
hurt you. Makes me think he wanted to teach you to hate us rather
than evil itself.”

“That
backfired,” I said, snorting with laughter. I didn’t tell them what
Emmett had said. I saw no point in giving them something new to
worry about. I probably should have stayed close to Eddie when I
had the chance, but I didn’t think even he would fail to see where
my loyalties lay.

Peter lent me
his precious car, so I picked up Val and the twins and drove to the
meeting point. Cam didn’t come. I wasn’t surprised, but I did feel
a little disconcerted as we headed out to the starting point, the
place where I would open the gates of Hell.

It occurred to
me that what I was doing was scarily dangerous, but the children
had to be worth the risk. I was already planning on taking bigger
risks later.

“He does this
all the time,” Val said.

“What?”

“Cam. He backs
out whenever he’s needed.”

Val fell
silent, likely mentally preparing herself for a battle. Lorcan was
edgy, but Lucia remained calm, and she was the one to watch. She
could often see snippets of what was coming, of what might happen,
and that might prove invaluable. Sometimes I wondered where the
snippets came from because she often drew up images from the past
as well, but whatever it was, she was good at it.

I had once
found her creepy, but there was truly something angelic about her.
I just hoped I hadn’t brought them to a tougher prison.

“Stick with me
down there,” I said. “But Lorcan, keep Lucia out of the way of any
fighting that might go on. Afterward, either stay with me or hide,
but don’t go willingly with anyone else. Let’s not make it easy on
the Council.”

Val nodded her
agreement. “And don’t let any of them see how useful you are. Never
agree to a deal. Just be extra careful.”

“We survived so
long around the vampires for a reason,” Lorcan said. “There’s no
need to worry about us. Concentrate on the bigger problems.”

There weren’t
enough people waiting for us. Our numbers reached thirty tops.

“This is it?” I
asked nobody in particular.

“Not many were
willing,” Gabe said. “We need to begin as quickly as possible. This
kind of gathering will set off alarm bells.”

“Fine.” I
raised my voice. “If you don’t keep up, you could get left behind.
I’ll try to hold open the gate until everyone gets through, but if
there’s trouble and something happens to me, you’re all screwed,
pretty much. When I open a door, I can’t guarantee something won’t
come out after us, or that it won’t close on top of me, so you’ll
need to deal with that, too.”

Many shifted
uncomfortably, but I ignored them and moved over to the heavy magic
of the pocket. Val and the twins followed me.

“I don’t like
this,” Gabe said, so close behind me that I felt his breath against
my hair.

“Nobody does,”
I said. “But this is what has to happen. We could get lucky.”

Lorcan
trembled. “It feels so familiar. It feels like home.”

“Let’s worry
about that later,” I said in a low voice, hoping Gabe hadn’t heard
him. “I’m just trying to find a weak spot, and then I’ll try to
make the gate in the grass. We’ll head down, hopefully, after
everyone else. I’m the last one through. Then we’ll push to the
front and let Val lead the way. Like I said, Lorcan, any sign of
danger and you pull Lucia back. She’s not exactly good at staying
out of the way.”

Lucia grinned,
but avoided touching me. I was grateful. I didn’t want any
knowledge of what we might see in Hell. My task was going to be
difficult. I would have to open a number of gates, according to
Val. I didn’t know who was in the market, so I couldn’t zone in on
them properly, but with Val’s help, we might move in the right
direction until we found the way. I was counting on Cam’s ideas
about me being a catalyst and projecting to work with Val’s
connection to her old home.

I finally found
a weak spot in the magic. “Are you all ready? It won’t look like a
door, but you have to trust me and push through it. It’ll be
disorienting, and there might be something waiting for us, so we
need the strongest to go through first.”

“What about
your friend?” Coyle’s voice curdled my blood. I wanted to vomit,
but I stood tall, comforted by the presence of Val and the
twins.

“She stays with
me,” I said without looking at him. I wasn’t planning on letting
the twins or Val out of my sight.

“I’ll go
first,” Esther said, closely followed by Aiden. Gabe, surprisingly
enough, offered to follow.

“If anyone
wants to back out, now’s the time,” I said. “Once we’re through,
there’s no turning back, not until we have the children safely with
us. And even then, like I said before, no guarantees.”

There were a
few grumbles, but nobody left. That was heartening.

I knelt on the
ground, feeling my way. Val laid her hand on my shoulder as I had
suggested. I concentrated on the market, of what I had heard of it,
and zoomed away from myself again. I moved through fire and a
confusing mass of darkness and shadows until I came close to
hearing children’s voices, but I couldn’t move any further.
Something blocked me.

It was the best
I could do, I realised, and I returned quickly. I concentrated on
what I had seen until I felt something shift beneath my hands. I
pushed myself through, past the veil, finding steps before me. I
stayed halfway through the gate, keeping one hand on either side,
one foot on the first step, one foot on the grass outside, and
nodded at Esther. The ranks moved swiftly enough and without
incident, aside from Coyle’s evil leer that sent crawling spiders
up my arms.

Val moved next,
then the twins, and finally, I stepped through completely, letting
the door close and trapping us all in Hell. I tried not to panic.
Pushing to the front, I made sure Val and the twins followed close
behind me.

“Am I far off,
do you think?” I asked Val at the head of the line.

“Not too far,”
she said. “But farther than I expected. This is the outer level
still, same as the place we moved through before. It’s less
protected, but it’s a lot more enclosed. We’ll need to move into
the next level to find our way.”

“Did I make the
steps, or were they already there?” I wondered aloud.

“The places
coexist,” Gabe said. “You simply found a way to open up a gateway
between the two. The worlds are all joined together, really, but
there are very few connections between them.” He glanced at the
twins, holding his gaze on Lorcan’s sword for a beat too long. “Or
so I thought.”

Val cleared her
throat. “We’ll have to walk a dangerous path, but we’ll find
ourselves there sooner rather than later. We could take a longer,
safer path, but a lot of time would pass. Too much time,
perhaps.”

“We’ll cut
through,” I decided. “There are enough of us to make a good go of
it.”

She nodded and
stepped forward. “Follow me,” she said loud enough for those at the
back to hear. “Stay close and watch your backs. There are things in
the walls and under your feet. There is no safe place here. The
first part of our journey might be the easiest, but that doesn’t
make it safe.”

We trudged
after Val, and I was happy to see she didn’t hesitate. If it seemed
as though she didn’t know where we were going, then we would most
definitely be screwed. Hesitation meant weakness. Weakness meant
trouble, especially in the dark, especially with Coyle around. He
had probably only volunteered to make contact with his old crew. My
money was so on him being involved with the market.

The first hour
was quiet. Too quiet. We trudged silently in groups of three and
four through thick, muddy substances. A weird gloomy light
prevented the place from being pitch black, but it wasn’t enough to
call it bright. We moved down a stone passageway, not unlike the
one Val and I had been trapped in, and sometimes I would think I
saw something move out of the corner of my eye, but whenever I
turned, nothing would be there.

“Watch
carefully,” Val said in a low voice, slowing down. Her shoulders
bulged, and a few gasps distracted me. “Something’s coming.”

A thundering
sound approached, and too late, I realised it was footsteps. The
noise came from ahead of us. The hell hound seemed even larger than
the last, barely fitting into the corridor, and I ran ahead to take
it on. But a yell had me skidding to a stop.

Lorcan.

I turned to see
a wormy-looking creature on top of Lucia, its hair a mess of bloody
fire. Lucia’s mouth had opened into a silent scream, and dread
filled my entire body as I ran toward them. Another creature
dropped from the ceiling to the floor between Lorcan and his
sister, and everything seemed to happen at once.

I aimed for
Lucia, but Val was there first, flinging the creature off of the
girl with a swing of her weapon. It fell into two pieces, but both
pieces grew until there were two creatures fighting.

Aiden and
Esther took care of the new double act, taking care to completely
flatten them instead of chopping them to pieces. Another creature
attacked Val as Lucia crawled backward in a hurry. I tried to help,
but I was ambushed by something with terrifyingly blank eyes. Its
features swam as it shifted appearance rapidly, all faces I knew. I
cut through it as it wore Peter’s face, then I reached for Val, but
Lorcan was there first, his sword driving through the monster with
a kind of grace I hadn’t imagined possible. Lorcan’s sword glowed
green when he removed it from the dead creature, and the glow gave
an eerie look to his determined features.

All around us,
creatures were falling to the ground, a variety of monsters that
had been unleashed upon us as one. As if they had been waiting for
us, I realised as I cut through one sneaking up on Lucia. And then
it was over, as quickly as it started.

Our group stood
around, panting, leaning on each other and checking for injuries. A
couple of shouts of laughter let me know the group remained
relatively unharmed.

Lorcan moved to
help up his sister, but Val beat him to it, helping Lucia very
carefully to her feet. Lucia limped a couple of steps, so Val
sheathed her weapon and picked her up.

“I’ll carry
her,” she said, a determined look on her face. Lorcan stared at
her, but he didn’t argue.

Esther gripped
my hand, her cheeks covered in a splatter of some black substance.
“We should keep moving.”

“Everyone
okay?” I asked.

“A couple of
minor injuries. One death. They’ll all be more wary now.”

“Good,” I
replied. “They’ll need to be.”

“They knew we
were here,” Val said, her voice steady in the midst of extreme
tension. “They knew. They were sent to welcome us.”

I worried about
who the traitor might be, but the atmosphere changed noticeably as
we followed Val, Lucia in her arms like a true fairy tale damsel in
distress. Everyone’s eyes were drawn to her, I noticed, and I could
see them gearing up to protect their own, to protect the weak ones
in the pack. We had fought together. Everything had changed.

“This is why
nobody trusts the Council,” I couldn’t help saying as I spotted
Gabe and Aiden in deep conversation. “They already knew we were
coming.”

Gabe looked up
at me. “It might have been a coincidence.”

I screwed up my
face, and Lorcan pulled me away before I could start an
argument.

“Thanks,” I
muttered.

“Don’t confront
them now,” he warned. “It won’t work out.”

I tried in vain
to wipe demon blood from my hands onto my jeans. “You did well back
there,” I told him.

He gazed at the
sword in his hand. “It wasn’t me. It was this.”

“Well, whatever
it was, keep it up. But maybe we should keep ahead of Val a little
now. Just in case.”

He nodded, and
we surrounded Val, one in front, one behind, both of us looking
around at any sound.

A scream from
behind stunned us all, and I ran with Gabe while the shifter
siblings watched over my friends.