by Linsey Hall
I inspected the whole space, looking for some kind of lever or way to stop whatever enchanted the massive room.
“I don’t see anything from here,” Cade said.
“Me neither.” If there was a way to stop this room from lighting up, it was impossible to see from our vantage point. “Maybe it’s against the wall near this door? Like the last room.”
“Maybe.” But his voice was doubtful.
So was I. “Let’s go in and check near the door. You look left, I’ll look right. If there’s nothing there, we keep going. Take it as it comes.” I hated just waiting here, trying to figure out what would attempt to kill us.
Let’s get this over with!
Cade looked at me, his green eyes seeming to see right through me. He nodded. “On three.”
I counted down, leaping into the room on one. I looked left. “Nothing!”
“Nothing!” Cade said.
We ran, sprinting for the other exit. I gave it my all, hoping to outrun whatever monster would come for us.
But nothing came alive. It was eerily silent except for our splashing footsteps. The dim crypt was creepy, but the threat was invisible.
I slogged through the water, panting and sweating. Gosh, this was getting harder.
Oh, shit.
I glanced down. My heart dropped as my skin chilled with fear. “The water is rising!”
It was up to my knees now. That’s why the threat was silent.
I pumped my arms and legs, lungs burning as I ran. But it was almost to my middle thighs. And we weren’t even halfway across.
Cade was running—the guy had almost a foot on me—but he was holding back. For me.
But the exit was too far. We’d never make it. I could try to swim it, but at this rate….
I’d drown.
But Cade didn’t have to.
“Go!” I screamed. “You’re faster than me!”
I was barely able to run now. Water was to my thighs. Soon, I’d be wading.
“Go!”
Instead, Cade grabbed me around the waist and threw me onto his shoulder. Then he ran, sprinting across the water like a running back on speed. I hung on, bouncing like mad as water splashed all around.
But the water kept rising. Faster and faster.
I had to shift to keep my head out of the water, inching around so that I could see how far we were from the exit.
Too far.
We weren’t going to make it. Not before we had to swim, and unless he was part shark, we wouldn’t do that fast enough.
The water was rising, cold and wet. I could feel it all around. It would drown us. It was so close. In my chest, in my mind.
Use it, a voice whispered. Use it.
I blinked.
What the heck?
The water is yours.
I shook my head. Was I having a panic attack? I was a scaredy-cat about a lot of things, but I only freaked out before the main event. Not during. During the disaster, I was usually cold as ice.
The water is yours.
Holy fates, that was a voice inside my head. And I could feel the water. In my heart, in my head. It was part of me. Like my magic. It filled me, wanting to burst out. Magic, water, magic, water.
I couldn’t tell the difference.
And I had no idea what was happening. But something was changing within me. There was more magic in me. Or it was trying to burst out. Or something.
I went on instinct, throwing my hands out and forcing the magic from me.
“Go!” I screamed, directing all my magic and fear and rage at the water.
It parted around us, like I was freaking Moses and this was the Red Sea.
Cade stumbled briefly, then adjusted to dry land and sprinted full out like a freight train. I lost my grip on him and flopped back over his shoulder, my head near his lower back. I clung to his waist.
The water held back on either side, a murky brown that threatened to crash in and drown us. But my magic held it at bay, something I didn’t understand but sure as hell knew was happening because of me.
I bounced along on his shoulder, feeling like my ribs would break, and forced my magic to keep the water from crashing down on us. It felt like the water was part of me—like I could command it the way I’d command my sonic boom.
But this was easily the least dignified way to learn that I had a new power.
Cade sprinted through the exit, leaping at the last moment and landing on higher ground. Solid, dry ground. I let go of my magic.
In the room behind us, the water crashed down, massive waves colliding together. Fortunately, the water staying in the other room, magic keeping it from flooding the whole place.
Cade set me down on a wood platform. I righted myself, panting and probably red-faced.
Around us, dark water sloshed. We were in a long room. Though it was full of water, there was a large platform built over it, leaving a channel of water on either side.
“What the hell was that?” Cade asked.
“Um.” I glanced at him, unsure of how to respond. A noise in the distance caught my attention. I looked around Cade, catching sight of four large figures coming toward us on the large wooden platform. I looked back at Cade. “We’ve got company.”
He turned, drawing his sword from the ether.
“Guards,” he muttered.
I drew my daggers, preferring the long-range game. I was getting tired.
In the dim light of the wall sconces, I made out four demons. All an unrecognizable species, but their horns made it pretty clear where they’d come from.
And where they’d be going back to.
While I hesitated to kill other supernaturals, demons were another matter altogether. Because you couldn’t kill a demon. All you could do was kill its earthly form. It’d disappear and wake up in its original hell almost immediately. Where they were supposed to be, anyway, since demons weren’t allowed to roam the earth. Mainly because they did shit like this—working for evil masterminds. They’d eventually blow our cover with the humans.
So killing a demon was pretty much guilt-free all around. Like low-fat yogurt. Except more murdery. And tastier, because that yogurt sucked. All the smiling women on the commercials could not fool me.
The four demons lumbered toward us, their magic powering up and filling the room with its stench. They were all huge, each a different species. One with red skin, one with blue, and two dark gray ones.
I hurled one of my blades at the nearest demon. It sank into his neck, and he collapsed back, crashing to the wooden platform.
His companions roared and charged us.
Cade answered with his own roar, charging with his blade raised.
Whoa, big fella.
He took out the first demon he met by slicing it right through the middle. I gagged, then raised my dagger.
Before I could get off my shot, a demon threw a fireball toward me. His flame-red skin should have given me a clue.
I dove, skidding against the wooden boardwalk as the fireball sailed overhead. It singed my cheek as it passed. Pain flared briefly.
I scrambled to my feet as he charged up his next fireball, then threw my blade. It sailed through the air, end over end, and landed in his neck.
He gurgled and collapsed backward, thudding onto the wide wooden platform.
Necks were my favorite. Gruesome, but they got the job done. No one kept fighting with a dagger sticking out of their neck.
The last demon—one with pale blue skin—hurled a huge icicle at Cade, but he blocked it with his blade. The thing exploded in the air, raining ice down on Cade as he swiped out with his massive blade.
The demon’s blue head flew into the air, blood spraying. It splashed against Cade’s face and torso.
Gag. Yup. Zombies were better. No blood.
I trotted toward Cade. “You really like to go for the most gruesome kills, huh?”
“I play to my strengths. And gory casualties seem to be my strength.”
I grimaced, though he was right. A guy of his size and muscle power didn’t need to get fancy with the footwork.
He stepped closer to me, raising a hand to my burned cheek. He didn’t touch, but I swore I could feel a caress all the same. “Are you all right?”
I swallowed hard and stepped back. “Fine.”
He gave me a long look, then knelt at the edge of the boardwalk and reached into the murky water, splashing a bit on his face.
“Careful! Keep your mouth closed.” I wasn’t sure what was grosser—demon blood or that water. “You could definitely catch something. I wouldn’t be surprised if your leg spontaneously falls off.”
He rose, his lips parted in a chuckle. “Are you a clean freak?”
“Not wanting to wash my face in water that has dead bodies in it hardly gets me clean-freak status.”
He gestured to all the demon bodies with his sword. “I’ll have you know that I kept all of these bodies out of the water. I’m considerate like that.”
I barked a brief laugh, then pointed back to the watery room we’d just come from. “What do you think was in those sarcophagi? No way those things are watertight.”
Cade grimaced slightly. “Fair point.”
“Exactly.” I strode over to the demon bodies that had already started to disappear back to the underworld, grabbed my two daggers, and wiped them on the demon’s shirt.
“You’re handy with more than just a sword,” Cade said.
“If your magic caused catastrophic damage, you’d become handy with weapons, too.” I grinned at the memory of bar fights back in Death Valley Junction. “No one likes it if you blow up the best bar in town over a poker disagreement.”
“You like poker?”
“I spent my formative years in the closest thing to the Old West. Of course I like poker.”
“Hmmm. Maybe a game sometime.”
Strip poker.
Nope, nope, nope! Of course my mind went right there, but my smarter self would not tolerate such shenanigans. If I wanted to keep my distance, strip poker was literally the worst way to go about that.
“Sure, maybe.” Never. I turned and inspected the rest of the room.
“We will need to talk about your new magic, though,” he said.
“Not now.” I inspected the rest of the room, but there wasn’t much to see. Just the wide, wooden boardwalk that led to heavy wooden doors on the far end of the room. I pointed to them. “Twenty bucks his lair is back there.”
“Agreed.” Cade strode toward it.
I kept pace with his long strides, my gaze zeroed in on the door. I clutched my daggers, ready for a fight. No way I’d throw a sonic boom down here and risk the church collapsing on us.
We stopped at the wooden doors, and I pressed my ear to one.
“Nothing,” I whispered.
Cade nodded, then slowly pushed one open and stuck his head inside. Half a second later, he walked through. I followed.
“Whoa.” I whistled low.
The room was empty, like a foyer. We were still in the crypts, with the same arched ceilings and support columns, but the place had been fancied up considerably. Crystal wall sconces shed more light on the space, making it look artistically historic rather than old and creepy. The room was still slightly flooded—maybe two feet of water—but the boardwalk was a beautiful gleaming wood laid with a brilliant red rug. Channels of water ran along either wall and sloshed under the boardwalk.
“Ricketts likes the finer things,” Cade said.
“No kidding.”
A splashing sound made me turn. I squinted at the water, but saw nothing.
I shook my head. No way there were fish down here. “You hear that?”
“Aye.” Cade’s brow furrowed. “Let’s go. There will be more people down here. I’m not keen on running into them. We need the element of surprise.”
“Right. Antidote first, though.”
We set off across the boardwalk, crossing under an arch. This room was more like a long hallway, narrower, but with the same wooden boardwalk hovering over the flooded ground.
“He really went to a lot of effort to work underground,” I whispered.
“Hardly worth it,” Cade said.
The hair stood up on the back of my neck as we made our way deeper into Ricketts’s lair. So far it was empty, but it wouldn’t stay that way. There were several doors up ahead, and we hurried toward them. Searching every room in this place could take a while.
Footsteps thudded in the distance.
“Someone’s coming,” I whispered.
“In there.” Cade pointed to the closest door.
We darted into the room, which was thankfully empty, and quietly shut the door. I could just barely make out the sounds of footsteps in the distance.
Please don’t come in here…
The only light in the room came from the thick gap under the door on either side of the walkway. It’d been channeled out so the water could flow freely. The dim light illuminated the space just enough to make out the boxes that were piled up on the platform that covered almost the entire floor. A two-foot area around the whole thing was open to the water below.
A splash sounded from across the room. Same as before.
I stiffened.
Next to me, Cade turned quietly to face the room, his gaze going straight to where the splash had sounded.
My senses went on high alert as I squinted into the dark. I could barely make out the individual towers of boxes. But something was definitely splashing around.
Two glowing green eyes appeared near the floor.
Something was crawling out of the water!
I raised my blade, hesitating. Waiting to see what the heck it was.
“Shhh,” it hissed.
“Shhh?” I whispered back.
“Quiet.” It raised a slender arm, putting a finger to its lips. Or at least, where I thought lips would be.
“What is it?” I whispered to Cade.
“No idea.”
“Come to help.” Its voice was more of a rusty hiss than anything else. Like it wasn’t used to talking.
The creature crawled up to us, skinny and almost human shaped, with dark gray skin. The glowing green eyes provided enough light to see its face, and it only appeared sort of human. Long hair hung from its head, looking more like weeds than anything else.
The creature was creepy, but for some reason, I wasn’t afraid.
Not because it was small, which it was. No larger than a child. But I felt a strange kinship with it.
“Who are you?” Cade asked.
The creature ignored Cade, its eyes riveted to me, as it crept toward us on its webbed feet and hands.
“Who are you?” Cade repeated.
“I talk to her, the one with the power.” Its gaze stayed glued to me.
“I don’t have any special power,” I said.
“You do, water woman. It is why I speak to you.”
Water woman? “Who are you?”
“Squido, of the Kappi clan. We lived here once, my people.”
“Kappi? Like Kappa, the water creatures?”
“The Italian branch. This was our home, until he came.”
“Ricketts?”
Squido nodded. “Magical obstacles were meant to protect us, but he turned them to his will.”
“You mean the rooms with the skeletons and rising water?” I asked.
Squido nodded. “Now he is here, and he built these stupid wooden platforms, and my family is gone.”
“Why are you here, then?” I asked.
“To cause problems.” The creature grinned, revealing blackened fangs. “I come back to taunt him. I don’t like him.”
“Me neither.”
The creature grinned wider. “Yes. Yes. What do you want here? Only one to come here who doesn’t stink of evil.” Squido’s green gaze darted to Cade. “Him, too, though he’s not special like you.”
“I’m not special.” Nope! No weird magic to see here, f
olks!
Squido shrugged. “What do you want here?”
“To find a potion and to kill Ricketts.”
Squido clapped his—or her?—webbed hands together. “Yes. Yes. I will help you. And you will give us back this place.”
This was the guide we needed. Squido could get us through this labyrinth. I looked at Cade. “Can we give it back to them?”
Cade frowned, brow furrowed, then he nodded. “Aye. If this is the ancestral homeland of the Kappi clan, we can make that happen.”
Squido’s eyes glued to me. “How?”
Hmmm. Smart water monster. Squido wanted a plan before we got down to business.
I looked at Cade. “How?”
“If we don’t take out all of Ricketts’s men, I’ll come clean up the rest myself. Then the Protectorate can see about making this a restricted area. A sanctuary protected for the Kappi clan.”
I grinned, liking the sound of that. It was like an endangered species preserve, except for water monsters. I looked at Squido. “Satisfied?”
“I trust water woman. You trust him?”
“Yes.”
Squido nodded happily, eyes glowing. “Come, come.” He waved a webbed hand. “I will help you.”
Thank fates for supernaturals who hated Ricketts. They were our biggest asset.
“First, we have to find where he stores his potions. Then we’ll go for him,” I said.
“Yes, yes.” Squido nodded. “We go to the crossroads. Potions to the right. End of the hall. Ricketts’s office the other way. To the left. I’ll divert guards, you steal and kill.”
I winced. He made it sound pretty bad when he said it like that.
Ah well. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and I wasn’t going to look a gift monster in the mouth.
The sound of footsteps had faded, so I looked at my companions and said, “Ready to go steal and kill?”
Cade grinned. “Aye.”
“Yes, yes!” The water monster gave a little hop of excitement.
“Right, then. Steal and kill.” I turned toward the door, wondering what my life had become. It’s not like I’d been on the right track before, but steal and kill was really off the rails.
Chapter Nine
Squido leapt off the platform and swam through the little channel to the right of the door. I looked down into the murky water.
