On the up side, they didn’t need a lantern.
“What’s down here, anyway?” he asked. They were underground, beneath the ninth circle of Hell. The gods only knew what kind of scum they might run into. He didn’t even want to think about it except that thinking about it would help him to be prepared when they ran into it.
“Honestly?” Grolsch asked as he gripped his mighty sword with a nervous grip and peered dead ahead, to that point where the light from Loki’s glowing body met the darkness of what was to come. “I’ve asked Tanith the same thing.”
“You have?”
Grolsch laughed, though it was a little choked with nerves. “We’ve traveled a lot together,” he admitted. “You get bored.”
Loki could understand that. “So what’s down here?”
“To hear him tell it, nothing.”
Loki frowned. “Then why are you so nervous?”
“Because priest,” said Grolsch with a sidelong glance. “Things change. And Drake could have been wrong.”
That made sense too. Loki fell silent. So far, they’d traveled a little over half a mile by his reasoning, and they would be under the castle’s foundation fairly soon. Then he would need another spell to get them back above ground. The problem was, he was already feeling pretty drained. The effects of Abaddon and the energy he’d already used up so far were having a weakening effect upon him. With a sinking feeling, Loki realized that a month ago, this would have been the time he’d have called upon Haledon for his help.
But this wasn’t a month ago, and Haledon was the sun god – and he and Grolsch were underground in Hell anyway. Haledon had no place here, and even if he had… Loki wasn’t so sure he would have listened.
“Up ahead, priest,” Grolsch suddenly said as he placed his large hand on Loki’s chest. Loki looked dead ahead, toward the darkness. The shadows broke there, where beams had been driven into the ground to make way for a castle’s foundations.
“We’re here,” Loki said.
“Now get us back above ground,” Grolsch said. Then he squared his own massive shoulders and stuck out his big, green jaw. “And get ready for a brawl.”
But before Loki could begin concentrating on the words to a spell that would send them once more out of the ground, that very ground began to tremble.
Grolsch froze beside him, and Loki’s hand went out to find purchase on the wall beside him. But that wall shook. Above them, pebbles broke free and skittered to the ground.
“Get us out of here!” Grolsch bellowed as ten feet in front of them, the ground buckled.
Loki cried out when the surface beneath his boots suddenly angled itself sharply and he went sliding. More dust and debris cascaded from the tunnel’s ceiling, obscuring his vision. He scrambled as his boots slid across the ground, trying to find purchase.
He couldn’t think. The words to bring to life whatever magic he needed to rectify this were eluding him. Grolsch made a harsh sound of pain as the rock wall beside him shot inward, slamming into him to knock him into the opposite wall.
Loki’s eyes widened. Through the dust, he could see the walls steadily moving now, sliding toward each other with slow, inexorable foreboding. The tunnels were collapsing on them. They were going to die down here, beneath the ground under the castle in Nisse. Loki had once served the sun god, had been host to his avatar. He’d fought the death mage and taken on the blue robes. He’d even survived The Hunt. Only to die in a tunnel under Hell. It positively did not get any lower than that.
Something cracked around them, an insane sound like a bomb going off, and another piece of the tunnel fell from its place and tumbled deafeningly to the ground, barely missing Grolsch’s off-kilter body.
“Priest!” Grolsch cried out, desperation clear in his gravelly voice.
There’s a lot of power in a name, priest. When the time comes, just make sure you call out the right one.
Loki closed his eyes, let his gut make his decisions for him, and called out a name.
*****
Malphas watched through the scrying pool. Around him stood half a dozen scryers, their combined power providing the images that now played out before him across the water’s smooth surface.
The world as he knew it had been turned on its head over the last few days. The things he’d learned and seen were more essential, more life-altering than anything Malphas had experienced in his very, very long life.
The plan to send Darken after his daughter was moot. Darken was Asmodeus’s son. So was Drake of Tanith. Adonides was dead. Asmodeus was vying for position of Death God – a proposition which frightened so many entities, even the gods had taken it upon themselves to try to stop him. They were the reason behind the assassinations in Abaddon.
And the attempted assassination of Raven Grey, Princess Winter – his only child.
And now….
Now Malphas watched through a make-shift window into another plane, another circle of Hell. The ninth. No devil could enter Nisse without an invitation, not even Malphas. So the mighty ruler of Caina was left to his own devices in the icy trappings of his fortress, stranded and separated from his daughter who continued to fight, not only for her freedom, but for the very human values she so strongly believed in.
*****
Drake’s eyes flashed red, his body began to morph, and fangs erupted in his mouth.
No Drake – over mine.
“As you wish!” he growled. There was more adrenaline than blood running through his veins at this point.
Moments ago, Drake had stepped through the portal to find himself exiting a mere half a mile from his father’s fortress – and just in time to see Raven make her glass-shattering escape. With a single word, he’d gone invisible, inaudible, and untraceable. It was something he’d been able to do for nearly his entire life and though he didn’t often use the ability, it did at times help immensely in his line of work.
Everything had happened fast after that. He’d made it to their side just as Asmodeus had transported himself and Raven to another location within Nisse.
And now here he was, caught in his father’s grip – and he could smell Raven’s blood on Asmodeus’s breath.
It was all he could focus on. It consumed his thoughts, his mind, his will. The Lord of the Nines had once again taken something that didn’t belong to him. And this time, Drake would see his own soul permanently trapped in Hell if that’s what it took to exact revenge.
With a tidal wave of rage-induced strength, Drake shoved forward. His wings erupted from his back, magic fueled him forward, and in the space of a heartbeat, he and Asmodeus were airborne, the two of them caught in one another’s grips. His eyes never left his father’s.
She’s mine, his mind hissed like a brand on wet flesh. Asmodeus smiled, flashing fangs of his own. All around them, their magic clashed, hot on hot, fire on fire, fury on cunning, charismatic evil.
Prove it, Asmodeus told him. Red lightning cascaded through the sky beside them, coming out of nowhere and heading into nothing. The sound rocked the ash-choked air and sent the ground below them into tremors. A flash of worry went through Drake for Raven’s sake.
Oh, I won’t let anything happen to her, taunted Asmodeus. I have plans for her.
Drake shifted, managed to free up his hand, and took his father by the throat to spin with him as a roar of rage escaped his throat. Lightning struck again, cracking the atmosphere into shards of red and gray glass. Below, the ground buckled and red rock broke through Nisse’s surface to climb into the sky.
The ozone shattered around them as Drake spun into one of these red rock walls and slammed his father’s body into its surface. The flames at the centers of Asmodeus’s eyes sparked into roaring fires and thunder exploded around them. Drake’s ears were ringing, but his gaze was steady.
Do it, Drake. If you don’t, I’ll take her myself as soon as I’ve finished with you. His low, powerful laughter rolled over Drake, around him, and through him. It left a trail of almost sickening
hunger behind it – a hunger for Raven, a hunger for power. For blood. Asmodeus grinned, and Drake looked into the face of his worst fear. I’ll take her until she bleeds, the voice continued to taunt. And then I’ll drink her nearly dry.
Asmodeus struck then, his magic and his speed so sudden, so strong, Drake honestly couldn’t tell exactly what was happening. Suddenly they were spinning once more through the air, and then Drake’s strong back was slamming into the same stone he’d been holding his father up against seconds earlier. Pain erupted behind his eyes, red and raw. It shot through his spinal cord, down his legs, and wrapped around his chest. The stone behind him cracked and crumbled, and Asmodeus pressed him into the debris with relentless strength. “I won’t kill her, of course,” he said as he leaned in and speared Drake with those terrible eyes. “That would be such a waste.”
Out of pure spite perhaps, the Dark Lord brought his knee up and landed it squarely in Drake’s stomach. Drake saw stars, but couldn’t double over; his father’s grip on his throat prevented any movement. Even breathing. “But it won’t be fun for her,” Asmodeus continued. “I have healing priests in my court for a reason.”
The world in that instant consisted of nothing but despair. Existence, in its purest form, was misery for Drake. In that moment, there was nothing else. And in that purity of thought and emotion, Drake saw inside of himself. It was as if he’d become hollow, and he floated within that misty shell, in that nothingness of echoes – and heard something snap.
Somewhere, some existential cord had come taut, pulled too tight, and suddenly given way. The rope was broken. The tie had come unbound.
Drake floated above himself, saw his form trapped in his father’s merciless grasp, and watched the change come over his own eyes. Their molten silver fractured, and the hellish flame that had been burning at their centers channeled out through lightning-like fissures in his metal gray irises.
Somewhere not far away, the crueler half of a torn being opened his own eyes, smiled, and closed them again a final time.
Drake’s soul wailed as its broken pieces were ruthlessly sucked together once more and baptized by the fire that melted them, molded them, and reformed them once and for all. A pulse of incredible power expanded from within him, swelling like nothing Drake had ever felt, and knocked his father backward.
As if pulled by the inexorable draw of dark fate, he came into himself again, at once fully aware, terribly whole, and gazed out through his own monstrously burning eyes in time to see the pulse of his power ripple over Nisse like a tidal wave.
Asmodeus didn’t hesitate to counter. He halted his retreat and came at Drake once more. Drake shoved off of the rock behind him, drew his sword from the scabbard at his back, and held the blade before him. It pierced his father’s chest, sliding deep and fast.
The world grew quiet and still, and all time stopped. Drake gazed into his father’s eyes. Then he twisted the blade. Asmodeus smiled, this time a strange, proud smile the likes of which Drake had never seen on his angelic face.
And then Drake withdrew his sword, the same ruby-hilted sword Asmodeus had given him when he was a mere twenty years old. It made a stark sound as it was removed from his father’s body. It was a final kind of sound, like the period at the end of a sentence, or an exhale after holding your breath.
Asmodeus took a step back. They were on the ground again; there was no sense to it, no reason for it, but there it was. Drake’s wings no longer beat the air; he had no wings. In the flash of a moment, he’d returned to his human form.
Before him, the king of Nisse looked down, saw the blood pouring out of his wound, and fell to his knees.
“That’s done, then,” he said softly. He seemed transfixed by the sight of the welling crimson. “You’ll make a fine king, Drake,” he said without looking up. “And Winter Raven was meant to be your queen.” Finally he looked up. Something passed between them, something intangible and all-encompassing and more important than anything else in the universe. And then, with a final, somewhat bewildered glance at his own wounded chest, Asmodeus exhaled.
His body began to blacken as if turning to obsidian. He held his hands out at his sides, palms-up, and closed his eyes. Inch by inch, his skin hardened and darkened until, at last, he was transformed and solid, immovable in the dust of Nisse. Drake waited, all of the gods seemed to be watching…. And then Asmodeus’s changed form burst into a cloud of ash.
And was caught up by the wind.
Drake stared at the place where his father had been. He stared for a very long time. Finally, he looked down at the sword in his hand, its blade coated with the blood of the former ruler of Abaddon. And then he took the blade between his thumb and forefinger and wiped off the blood before straightening and re-sheathing the ancient weapon in the scabbard at his back.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The battle was too fast and furious for Raven to follow. Drake and his father were a pair of black blurs in a landscape now screaming with red lightning, hot winds, and rumbling sands. The magic pouring forth from their struggling figures was stifling in its intensity. Waves of it would wash over her, only to take the breath from her lungs and send stars swimming before her eyes.
When the ground began buckling, Raven tripped and slid along the sandy surface. She considered taking flight, but fearing the wayward lightning that zigzagged through the atmosphere, she felt at a loss. She was also exhausted and unsure as to whether she could actually change forms again.
The dilemma was solved for her when two of Asmodeus’s guards appeared beside her, simply materializing out of the charged red air. They’d clearly been drawn in from someplace else – and the first thing they did upon assuming solid form was grab Raven by the arms and bat their massive wings to take her into the sky.
She closed her eyes as her booted feet left the ground and the blast of the lightning threatened ever closer. If it was going to strike her, she wasn’t going to watch.
The fight continued below; she could hear it. Asmodeus said things to Drake that Raven couldn’t decipher, and all of Nisse seemed to react to their struggle, rumbling and hissing and crashing all around them.
At one point, there was the briefest silence before a horrible wave of power rippled across the entire realm.
It felt like a shockwave across Raven’s body, stifling her consciousness until she nearly passed out. Even if she’d wanted to open her eyes then, she couldn’t have. She thought she was dying. She was being crushed and eaten and torn apart from the inside out, and the terror would never end. She was positive.
But somehow, it did end. The wave passed mercifully over her, and in the aftermath of its strength, the world grew quiet.
So quiet.
The sudden, stark stillness surrounded her, nearly worse in its ability to terrify than the pulse of power that preceded it, and Raven heard nothing but the sound of her own ragged breathing. She waited several silent beats and found herself opening her eyes to see once more. The guards were still holding her, their grips ever tight, though the expressions on their faces made it clear that they did so now only on penalty of death.
Their eyes were not on her. Raven followed their gazes.
Several yards away, against the raised outcropping of a parched red rock, Drake held his sword before him. Upon it was Lord Asmodeus, ruler of the nine Hells of Abaddon, speared through the chest to mid-blade.
No.
The lightning had ceased. The rumbling had stopped. It seemed everyone in every realm was watching just then. Raven heard her heart hammering. She felt her eyes so painfully wide in her face, and knew that nothing she ever experienced again would be as monumentally important as what she was seeing in that moment.
Asmodeus moved back, and Drake withdrew his sword. It made a strange, horrible sound as it left the body of his father.
Time and space shifted. Raven was once more firm footed on the ground, and the guards beside her had gone as still as the rest of the world.
She watched
in that terrible stillness as Asmodeus took a step back, looked down at his chest, and then fell to his knees.
“That’s done, then,” the king said softly. He seemed oddly bewildered by the sight of his own blood pooling and falling from the mortal wound in his abdomen. “You’ll make a fine king, Drake,” he said without looking up. “And Winter Raven was meant to be your queen.”
A thrum of something potent went through Raven. No. She looked to Drake, who had returned to his human form and now stood holding his dripping sword before the bent form of his father.
Finally, the wounded Dark Lord looked up. His eyes met Drake’s. Something silent passed from father to son. She could almost feel it.
And then, with a final, bemused glance at his royal, blood-drenched armor, Asmodeus exhaled and raised his arms at his sides. Raven watched in mute fascination as the king’s tall, strong body began to blacken as if turning to onyx or obsidian. Little by little, the stone ate up his skin, gradually darkening his entire frame until he was but a statue of black rock, kneeling in the red dirt of Nisse.
Several tense beats later, Asmodeus’s statue burst into a cloud of ash that was caught up and carried away by a hot breeze.
Raven watched it climb until it was out of sight. Then she looked back down at Drake. He stared at the place where his father had been. He seemed to be in a trance almost, he stared for so long. And then slowly, he looked down at his own sword. With eerie calm, he took the blade between his thumb and forefinger and wiped Asmodeus’s powerful blood away. Then he straightened and slipped the sword back into the sheath strapped to his back.
Raven was tired and drained, and she’d spent so long being driven by adrenaline, she felt dizzy. But when Drake turned toward her and the guards without looking up at her – when he began coming toward them with slow purpose, his head bent, his black hair curling from sweat and ash… Raven experienced a new wave of incredible unease.
Drake of Tanith (Chosen Soul) Page 19
