The Devil's Liege (The Mathias Saga Book 2) (17 page)

She smiled. Instead of only her eye teeth being pointed like a vampire, every tooth in her head was sharp and needle-like. “There is a reason I am helping you now.”

Her helping was suspect, but he had to take what he could get. It wasn’t like Azazel was helping anymore. “Is Nossy okay?” Mathias asked.

She bowed her head a little. “He is not well. I’ve slowed down his body processes as much as I could, but he is very ill indeed.”

“Seriously? You slowed down his body? Ever think about letting him go, feeding him even?” This was such bullshit. If he was strong enough, there was a bunch of things he’d like to do to her for all of this. Maybe she’d like to starve and waste away for months. See how if felt.

“It was part of the agreement,” she said.

Yeah right. Why would the kidnappers care what happened to Nossy? Especially if they planned to kill him anyway. “And what would have happened if you’d gone against the agreement?”

She twitched. “What do you think I am doing now?”

This woman, creature, made no sense. She wouldn’t feed Nossy, but she’d almost freeze him to death until he could be saved. What a bunch of horseshit. “I mean, if he dies from this, you’ll be first on my list.”

She suddenly smiled so wide that her mouth stretched all the way up to her eyes. It was one of the most grotesque things he’d ever seen, worse than anything he’d noticed in a horror film.

“Remember, young one, there is no black or white,” she said. “Only shades of blue and grey.”

Yeah. What about black ice, bitch? Still, he didn’t say it aloud. There was something about her that fascinated him. He just didn’t know why, but he had sense enough not to like it. “Where can I find Nossy?”

She pointed down the way he’d been heading with her finger. It was tipped in a long ice-blue nail. Then, she faded away. The frost melted and the stone went back to being black.

“Yeah. No black in winter. Right.” He forced himself further down the hallway.

* * * * *

Finally, he reached a part of the castle that was dark. There was no illumination at all. Everything was so black, even Mathias couldn’t see the nose on his own face. It bothered him. He’d been getting so used to being a vampire, he’d forgotten just how helpless humans were. And, here he was, reduced to that.

He felt around, ignoring the pain now. Nossy felt so close. The pain was too strong to be anything else. It felt like it was going to rip him apart.

His fingers crept over the surface of the wall. Most of it was smooth. Here and there he would find a ripple, almost like a fault in the stone. Finally, he felt a distinct crack. He felt around. It was in the shape of a door. He explored further, trying to find the knob, but there was none. Mathias couldn’t even feel a crack underneath the door. Just the sides and top felt like there was an opening.

“Great.” Of course there had to be yet one more obstacle. He should be used to it by now. No one involved in this mess wanted any part of it to go easy. What do you do when you have a door with no knob? All he knew how to do was the thing that opened the castle to begin with. If that didn’t work, he would have to back up and punt. Mathias put his hand in his mouth and bit down. When he tasted the blood, he pulled his hand out of his mouth quickly and smeared it on what he thought was the door. After a moment, he could hear stones grinding, and finally, there was the stench of rotting waste and unwashed body.

Mathias reached his hands out in front of him. Where solid stone used to be, there was an empty expanse roughly the same size as the crack of the door.

Mathias gagged. The smell was so strong. Nothing he’d smelled on the street was even this bad. He crept forward. “Nossy?” Suddenly, the pain just stopped. He reached out with his hand and felt cloth. He was here.

It felt so weird without the pain. He could move freely. He could think. Hell, he didn’t feel like falling over every two seconds. Now that the pain wasn’t distracting him, he blinked the room lit. Nossy was in front of him, but there wasn’t much more than a skeleton left. He was too late. Too fucking late.

“Fuck!”

Then the skeleton moved its head.

* * * * *

Mathias blinked Nossy into the air. He seriously doubted that the Snow Queen would just let him blink Nossy out of there, so he moved Nossy’s body up until the floor was flat again, levitating him. He guided Nossy’s body in the air in front of him. Now that he had light and it was easy to see where he was going, he was able to go much faster. He ran until the path merged into several directions. Each hallway was an oval black maw. No light came from within. It was a wonder he’d found Nossy at all. Either it hadn’t been that way before, or he’d been too fucked up from the pain to know where he was going. Somehow, he imagined that the castle changed. And maybe, the queen bitch had done it.

“Okay, bitch. Show me the way, or I will figure out how to burn this fucking place down!” He was beyond caring what she could do to him now. Nossy was still alive, barely, and if he died now, Mathias didn’t know how long he could control himself from destroying the whole fucking castle.

His voice echoed throughout the hallways and boomeranged around until it came back to where Mathias was standing.

Then, he heard a twinkling giggle, and one of the doorways flashed with light.

“Bout fucking time.” He guided Nossy though that hallway and it led to the room that had the hole to get outside. Mathias continued running with Nossy until they were outside the castle and standing next to Azazel.

Azazel stood near the horses, a grave expression on his face.

“Can we blink him back home?” Mathias asked. If not, they were so damn screwed.

“Not until we get out of this valley. With her here, the spells are all back,” Azazel said.

“Wonderful.” Mathias rolled his eyes.

Chapter Twelve

Hiking out of the valley took a hell of a lot longer than going down in it. There were no stutter steps at all this time. No indication that time was doing anything weird. Mathias wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. All he had was drudgery. Mathias had lashed Nossy to Stormy’s back after forcing a little of his blood down the decrepit vampire’s throat.

It hadn’t seemed to make a difference. Of course, he couldn’t give him much, he’d been without extra blood of his own for too long, but it was something at least. Azazel watched and did nothing. Maybe demon blood would make Nossy sicker? That was yet another one of those odd questions that he didn’t know the answer to.

So, Mathias trudged up the mountain on foot. He blinked the snow away from the path in front of him as he walked. That way, his feet didn’t get wet. And, well, he didn’t need to worry about holding back on his blinking anymore. What was wrong with him physically was gone.

Just before they reached the crest, Mathias paused.

“I’ll see you soon,” a tinkling voice echoed in his head.

“Great. Just fucking great.” Now one evil bitch in his head was replaced with another. Just how lucky was he going to get?

Azazel stopped his horse and turned around to look at Mathias. “Whatever was that about?”

Mathias shook his head. “I have no fucking idea.”

Azazel snorted, tapped his heels into his horse’s flanks and topped the mountain. Mathias followed behind.

* * * * *

“We need to hold them off,” Vlad said as he passed Stuart in the hallway. He looked odd, pasty and out of sorts.

“What are you talking about?” Stuart asked. This was the worst he’d seen Vlad. The old man had finally lost it.

“I’ve heard some rumblings, there is a group passing out a petition today to appoint a new king.” Vlad would not slow down. Stuart was almost jogging just to keep up with him.

Okay. So maybe he wasn’t going insane, but still, this running wasn’t normal. Vlad clearly wasn’t thinking with his right mind, otherwise he just would have blinked himself wherever it was that he needed to go. Stuart followed Vlad as he rushed down the hall.

“Who are they submitting it to?” Stuart asked.

“The Order.”

Vlad’s actions made sense now. The Order’s room was spelled so that you could not blink inside. This was not good. Still though, he could blink himself outside the door, but Stuart wasn’t about to give any advice now.

Then, Vlad almost knocked down a kid who had walked out of the nearest hallway. Stuart caught him before he fell and set him to rights. Vlad just kept plodding along. As he passed, he nodded an apology to the kid. Stuart couldn’t believe it. Now, granted, he understood the hurrying, but this was ridiculous.

“It’s just a petition,” Stuart said.

Vlad moved faster. “We can’t give them any excuse.”

Stuart wanted to roll his eyes, but stopped himself. Vlad wasn’t looking at him anyway. “But how are you going to stop them?” Stuart asked.

“I need them to wait. Things have changed,” Vlad replied.

Stuart didn’t bother asking how. He figured he would find out as soon as Vlad approached the Order anyway. No sense in making him repeat himself. Finally, they reached the door in front of the Order room. The frescoes looked the same as they always had. The marble glistened in the candlelight. There was no indication that anything had changed.

“Changed how?” Stuart asked.

Vlad grabbed the handle and opened the door. “I got a signal about an hour ago on one of the tracking spells. It hasn’t let up.”

Maybe this was it. Or maybe, this was a hell of a trap. At this point, it was hard to tell. Stuart followed as Vlad entered the room. “And who does this spell track?”

“Mathias.”

* * * * *

The wind blew fierce at the crest of the mountain. Mathias could still see the Queen’s castle down in the valley, cold, black, and unyielding. He couldn’t even see the hole he’d made in the side of it anymore. It was speaking to him. “Come back.”

Mathias turned his head away from it. She could keep her creepy ass away from him. She seemed more demon than anything, and if his experiences with Azazel were any indication, they weren’t exactly trustworthy. Different, and yet, Azazel had done what he said he’d do. He had helped Mathias rescue and find Nossy. That wasn’t something he was going to forget any time soon.

But,
her
. All she’d done was help guide him out. He still wasn’t all that impressed, especially when she almost caused his friend to die. He didn’t need people like that around him. Or, at least, any more anyway. Seemed like he never could avoid people who wanted to kill him.

“You ready?” Azazel asked. His eyes glowed red for a moment then faded to black.

“Yes.” He’d been ready.

The dark prince nodded. “So, the Queen’s sweet on you …”

Mathias glared at him. “Shut up.”

* * * * *

“So, King Mathias is on his way, is he?” Erasmus asked. He was now the new speaker. Vlad would have preferred someone else, but he couldn’t have everything. The speaker was always known as someone that was rather old. And, well, the rest of the proper age were already in better places of power.

“Yes, the alerts have indicated it,” Vlad said.

Erasmus grunted. “And how do you know that someone isn’t just bringing his head?”

Vlad was getting tired of the old man. He could almost bet he’d had something to do with Nossy’s kidnapping, but he had no proof. Too much more, and he’d have to do something about him. He walked over and poked him in the chest with his claw. “If he were dead, we’d all know it.”

“That’s true,” one of the other Order members said. A younger man named Klaus if memory served. Soon, the place sounded like a bee hive. All of the Order members were speaking at once. So much for solid rule.

Erasmus backed up. “I apologize. I forgot my place.”

Vlad nodded once. Hard. He looked over at Stuart. “Come.”

* * * * *

Mathias watched as Azazel made sure Nossy was secure on the horse. He wasn’t sure if blinking would dislodge him, but it was a comfort to know that Azazel cared. After he made sure the lashes were taught and secure, he stepped away from Nossy and the horse.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to blink you along too?” Azazel asked.

Mathias waved him off. It wasn’t worth the risk to add yet more things for Azazel to worry about. Strength was one thing. There was no sense in pushing it. “You have done enough. Besides, I can easily fly now.”

Azazel laughed. “Oh yes, I forget. The master flyer must be going crazy.”

“I’m not that bad.” Though he had to admit he’d missed it.

Azazel’s mouth was twitching at the corners.

“Okay,” Mathias said. “Fine. Get out of here. Nossy isn’t well, we’ve fucked off long enough.”

Azazel’s face grew serious again. “Yes, I do believe you are right.”

He mounted his horse, and suddenly, they were gone. It was official. Mathias had now done all he could for his old friend. Anything more just wasn’t possible. He knew in his heart that Azazel wasn’t going to dump Nossy somewhere. There was no advantage for him to do that.