by Maya Daniels
“Ewww, I really didn’t need to see that!” Jez yells at the same time the rest start talking too.
“I told you she changed,” Meda mumbles.
“The angel can look at me like that any day.” Faith sighs.
“What are you playing at, Alexia?” Remi obviously thinks I have a plan with all this and, by the sound of it, she doesn’t like it.
“You think I always have a reason for doing things?” I ask Remi and ignore the rest.
“I can bet my life on it,” she says while squinting her eyes at me.
“Well, I’m happy to inform you that I don’t, no matter how it seems to you. Sometimes, I just do stupid shit before I think it through.”
“No plan, huh?” She’s not convinced and still squinting at me.
“Nope! At times, I like to do shit willy-nilly. I like to live on the edge.” I wiggle my eyebrows at her. That gets her to crack a smile.
“Oh, you rebel, you!” She laughs. I can’t help but smile back. I have missed them so much. Just now I realize that until seeing them I was really afraid I would never find them or be able to get to them in time. My chest squeezes tight at the thought, so I blink repeatedly so I don’t let tears flow down my face. Now is not the time.
“Anyways”—I turn to look at Lucifer—“as I was saying, we will need to work fast. If I can get the cuffs off, we can grab one lantern holder, knock him out, then cut his arm and open all the cages. More of us doing it will help speed things up. Then we get the hell out of here. We can go into the woods. We are safe there since these creatures can’t get in—”
“Derik may be able to get in,” he cuts in.
“…and if that ass gets in there, I’ll deal with him. Plus, he has Tiamat tethered to him. Inanna was freaking out when I called her there because she thought she would get noticed, that’s why she merged with me. We might get help from Azalea if she feels you there, which will be a bonus. Don’t forget, we can use our magic outside the wards. There’s one of him and many of us. Then we will find Philip and get the hell out of here,” I finish out of breath.
“What do you mean Inanna merged with you?” Remi snaps,
and my head turns so I can stare at her.
I frown.
“Can we get this shit going first so we can leave this place? We can chit-chat later about unimportant stuff.”
“That’s something you find unimportant?” The incredulity in her voice makes me shiver out of fear. What the fuck!
“Later, Remi. This is not a debate! We need to try to get out of here, like yesterday.”
I take a deep breath. Okay, the plan is good, so we just need to roll with it. I nod to myself, not waiting for anyone to talk or come up with different plans.
Concentrating on the cuffs, I call out the fire and try to aim it at the metal on my wrists. All of them start talking, but I ignore them. We must move before Derik comes back, and if this works, then I’ll be damned if I sit around to chat when I can get everyone out of here. I strain to grasp the element and pull on it so it comes to my aid, but it’s slippery like oil. It passes through my grasp before I even have a chance to realize I have it. My hands and legs quiver from the strain, but it keeps slipping. My breath comes in short puffs. It’s never been this hard to call on an element, even the ones I’m not good at. It must be the wards, I decide, before I stop trying to grasp it and get ready to open my eyes. We will have to find another way out, unfortunately.
As my lashes flutter, just before I turn to Lucifer to tell him I can’t get rid of the cuffs, his breath puffs like a soft breeze on my face. Before I register what is happening, his lips press on mine in a bruising kiss, and something in my chest explodes. Warmth and energy gush out from whatever is blocked inside until I’m lightheaded from it. His tongue pushes my lips apart, twisting and sliding against mine in a primal dance that has my head spinning and toes curling. Out of nowhere a thought emerges: this is not normal.
No kiss should ever feel like this, angel, god, or human. This is something that can twist a soul into submission and alter one’s life. No one should have this much control of someone else. Strong arms wrap around me like steel bands, and too late I realize my hands are roaming his shoulders, pecs, and abs. My eyes pop open, and I push him away with all my might. He flies a couple of feet and slams on his ass on the ground, while I’m left panting and un-cuffed next to a pole that is all in ashes now.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Still panting, I turn to the angel with round eyes and freak out even more, because he is staring back at me with his jaw hanging open. What the fuck just happened? Searching around us, everywhere my eyes land wide ones gawk in return, my sisters gaping openmouthed while their arms hang limply at their sides. They are gawking at me like I’ve grown a second head and it pisses me off. Before I have a chance to open my mouth and tell them to stop staring, the first screech of a creature reaches my ears.
Chapter 18
All hell breaks loose. Cloaked creatures run towards us, screaming so loudly my teeth chatter from the sound. I bolt towards the cell where my sisters are and right at the creature holding a lantern. A green eerie flame flies towards me, so I throw my body to the left, narrowly missing it and bumping my head on the ground from the fall. Pushing my body up with my arms, I scramble on all fours and dodge fire, but a few of them don’t completely miss their mark, grazing my arm, shoulder, and thigh. Instead of feeling burns, there is a weird coldness where the flames touch my skin.
I have no time to dwell on that, though.
As soon as I near the creature, I jump at it, tackling it with my body weight. We topple to the ground, our momentum making us roll all the way to the bars of the cell. Thankfully Remi and Faith are there and grab the cloak so the creature can’t move while I rake my nails on its arm and smear the sluggish black blood on the bars. As the bars move up, I grab its head and slam it on the ground as hard as I can. Arms grab my shoulders and pull me off the creature. The buzzing in my ears lowers and, as though through a fog, I hear voices yelling really close to my face. I turn my head and see the girls watching me with wariness in their eyes and my chest squeezes uncomfortably.
“It’s dead, Al. We need to go!” Jez shouts, her face so close I can see the pores on her skin. I blink stupidly.
“Let’s go! We’ll talk about this later,” Remi snaps, grabbing my arm and pulling me to my feet.
I look around to see Meda and Faith holding one creature each in front of them like human shields to stop the green fireballs from hitting us, moving them like puppets. Over their heads, Lucifer plunges through creatures like a bowling ball, and it is a sight to be seen. Avenging angel suits him perfectly, with the pure beauty of his movements. Like a dancer, he twists and turns, ripping heads off left and right. Those with heads still attached are broken in half.
“Hello! Let’s move,” Remi yells as she drags me towards the other cells. In a haze, I glance down at my hands. I’m covered in blood up to my elbows. My stomach twists and I gag. Flaring my nostrils so I don’t puke my guts out, I search around to see where we are. The girls are pale and shaky, and that snaps me out of whatever the hell is going on with me. One more peek at my hands gives me an idea.
“I have its blood on my hands. I’ll open the cells. We just need cover and to run,” I tell Remi.
With one nod of her head, she yells for us to run in a circle and up to the stairs on the other side. Reaching my hand out so I can touch the bars of the cells we are passing, we run much slower than we should, since the creatures are a lot heavier than I expected. Meda and Faith have a hard time holding them up.
“Help them hold the creatures,” I tell Jez and Remi.
They grab one side, while Meda and Faith grab the other, and we move faster. We are not even waiting to see if the women are exiting the cells. If they aren’t, there is nothing we can do about it since there are fireballs constantly hitting at us from all directions. In the whole crazy mess, the screech of an owl almost brings tears to
my eyes.
“Rajah is here to help,” I croak, unable to hide the emotions swirling in me. It seems like hearing that gives all of us a boost.
With renewed determination, we keep running. There are fewer fireballs hitting us now because we’re moving faster. Also, the women escaping the cells are throwing themselves at the nearest creatures, taking them down by punching, kicking, raking nails, and biting, even when they’re barely able to stand. As we near the stairs on the other side of the cave, Lucifer meets us halfway.
“You need to open a portal outside of the cave. These women need to get out of here as soon as they’re out. We can’t take them with us. He will go after us, not them,” I yell so he can hear me.
“I shall be back,” is all he says and bolts across the cave through the middle so fast he’s nothing but a blur.
“Go outside, all of you, go through the portal,” Jez screams as loud as she can. Women pour out after Lucifer as soon as they hear her.
We start for the stairs. My heart is beating in my throat and temples. There are two more levels of cells and I don’t think we have much time before Derik shows his face here, especially with all the screaming the creatures are doing.
“Guys, you go, run to the woods. I’ll get the cells myself. It’ll be easier to get away if it’s just me when Derik shows up,” I tell them urgently.
“How nice of you,” Remi says sarcastically and starts pulling everyone up the stairs.
“Remi, don’t be an ass. You know I’m right. If you’re not here, I can fight him. With you here, he has leverage by threatening you. We will all die.”
“Then we die.”
This last bit comes from Meda, and I gape at her. She gives me a big bright smile and doubles her effort, pulling the creature up the stairs. Jezzinta laughs and Faith joins her.
“What’s up, Sap? You thought you’d show your skinny ass here and order us around? It sucks to be you, huh?” Jezzinta shakes her head.
“I don’t find it funny,” I tell her as we reach the top of the stairs. Fireballs zip left and right and some hit the creatures the girls are holding. The others are trying to anticipate openings to hit us through our makeshift shields.
“Nope, it’s not funny. Obviously, some shit has gone down, but you’ll spill the beans when we get out of here,” Remi says, glaring at me with hard eyes.
“Let’s move.” I start jogging again.
They don’t expect me to move so fast, so a fireball hits me in the shoulder since I leave myself open. The coldness from it seeps all the way to my bones, and I reach my hand to hold on to something as my body is lifted off the ground from the impact. My hand misses the bar and goes between the two metal bars towards the inside of a cell as the entire right side of my body slams into it. Pain flares so strong and I know I’m about to lose consciousness. As blackness starts taking over my vision, arms wrap around me and lift me up. Like the first rays of sunshine after a long storm, warmth spreads through my insides, melting the ice that has taken residence since receiving the first hit. Slowly, my vision clears and I look up to see Lucifer holding my weight, the girls peeking at me from behind him with worried eyes.
“I’m okay, it’s just a flesh wound,” is my pathetic attempt at humor to lighten the mood.
“Okay, Monty Python, if you say so,” Jez says lightly, but I hear the fear in her voice.
I feel everyone’s fear, too. Okay, maybe it was a close call, but there is no way I’m going to admit that. I swallow the lump in my throat and peer at Lucifer again. He hasn’t moved or said anything, he just keeps staring at me like a statue.
“Thank you,” I croak, wiggling so he lets go of me. He gets the hint, thank the Goddess. I have no idea what’s going on, but I’ll bet my life it has something to do with this realm and that stupid lantern I had to carry around. I don’t know why we didn’t just come here, doing the exact same thing we are doing right now, but it is what it is.
Legs shaky, I start moving again, smearing the creature’s blood from my arms on bars we pass. We manage to open the cells on the second level, reminding them to get outside and through the portal. I pray to the Goddess that no one waits for them there to stop their escape.
“We need more blood. The one on my arm is dried up or used up,” I tell them.
Lucifer runs ahead, and before I get a chance to ask where he is going, I see him coming back, dragging a lantern creature with him. He holds the creature in one hand on the open side of the cave, using it like a shield and walking as if he is taking a stroll in the park. Shaking my head, I take a deep breath, trying not to get pissed off because I have no more strength. I just want us to get the fuck out of here.
As soon as he is within reach, I grab the creature, turn it around, and slam its head on the cave wall between the cells. Since I see no blood, I do it a couple more times, and this time a puddle forms at my feet. I hand Lucifer back his human—or maybe creature–shield and smear my hands in the blood, trying to coat them as much as I can.
“Let’s go.”
I rush towards the stairs, going up to the third and last level of cells. There are only a few creatures on this level, thankfully, and they walk parallel to us on the opposite side of the cave as they hurl fireballs at us. I don’t know how many Lucifer killed, but there are considerably fewer than when all of this started.
I peer down as we keep moving and opening cells, and my eyebrows hit my hairline. Bodies of creatures lay in piles on the ground and they’re all at odd angles. Some are just splattered remains, as if they jumped from the higher levels. I guess Rajah helped more than I expected. There are a few bodies of women as well, with black marks where the fireballs hit them. My heart thumps painfully a few times in my chest, but I push it away. It was inevitable; we knew not all of us could get out of here unharmed. It doesn’t make it right, but for some reason, I handle it much better than any other time in my life.
When we’re done with the cells, we descend the stairs. I have no time to think of the reason why seeing the women we freed dead didn’t hit me a lot harder. My whole body is shaking and I’m grateful that my legs hold me so I can walk.
Just as we reach the bottom step on the ground, creatures pour in from the tunnel behind us. There are a couple dozen of them and they stop like they’re waiting for us to go to them. We all freeze, along with a dozen women from the top level cowering behind us.
Bright hot rage, unlike any before, burns in my chest as if I will repeat the episode from the night I killed Enlil and burn myself to ashes again. But no, this is different, like opening a tap but the water stops and collects at a spot where the hose is knotted. It keeps building, ballooning, and the pressure intensifies. I push Lucifer to the side, since he stepped in front of me to guard me with his body, and he stumbles a couple of steps, probably because he wasn’t expecting it. I take two steps to stand in front of everyone without explaining why when I realize there are more creatures scrambling down from the top opening and we’re now surrounded from all sides. The pressure keeps building in my chest and it’s getting uncomfortably hot. My body shivers like I’m cold, which is ridiculous because sweat is pouring down my back from the heat in my chest. I want to laugh because it feels like I’m about to self-combust and explode like a ticking bomb.
The girls are saying something and Lucifer is yelling at me, but I can’t understand their words. Maybe the wards stopping me from using my magick are going to kill me. It also must be making some sort of a barrier around us, because the creatures start throwing green fireballs at us from all sides, but they bounce off a foot before they reach us. My body is shaking a lot more now, and all I can see around us is green fire. The next second, the pressure in my chest snaps like a rubber band, but the strangest thing happens. Veins of fire crawl from my chest to my throat. It looks almost as if I’m cracking out of a mold and going to spit fire like a dragon, but as they reach my collarbone, they stop. The red butterfly around my neck bounces, glowing like it has a mind of its own, and in
the next second, a beam of fire shoots from it straight through the wall of green flames in front of us. The fireballs stop flying our way, like the creatures stopped to wonder what the hell is going on. Well, they can join the club, because I have no fucking clue what it is, either.
As we watch, the beam spreads, shooting out other beams from its length in all directions, and within seconds, we’re gapping at an interconnected web of fire. It’s as beautiful as it is horrifying. The end of each beam is connected to a creature and spreads all around the cave. It pulses three times, and we stumble when we hear a sonic boom. All of the creatures around us explode into flames in an instant, and in the next, they turn to ash. As the dust of their bodies settles, an eerie quiet descends on the cave.
I turn around and see everyone in our group is looking at me like I’m an alien species and they’re making first contact. My sisters stare at me with fear and confusion, which puts me on edge.
“I come in peace,” I blurt.
They blink as if they were in a trance. Two blinks and they burst out laughing, all of them.
“What the fuck was that, E.T.? Wait, don’t tell us! Let’s get the hell out of here first!” Jez grabs my arm and drags me out of the cave. Everyone else follows, cackling.
Unfortunately, I don’t find any of this funny.
Chapter 19
Passing through the tunnel to exit the cave seems like it’s taking an eternity. Maybe it’s just my anxiousness to get out of dodge and know that everyone is safe that makes it seem that way. Well, as safe as we can be in this cursed realm. As we near the exit, we all slow down. I can’t hear anything over the pounding of my own heart in my ears.
“I don’t know how you did it, witch, but you destroyed the wards so I can use my power. All of you stay behind me in case they’re waiting for us. When I tell you, all of you head for the woods. The women need to go through the portal. I have barriers around it so that only women can pass through, but they must be fast,” Lucifer directs.
