Descent (The Infernal Guard Book 2)

by SGD Singh

  Uma voice rang out from inside. “Okay, people! The canine unit has arrived! Let’s move out!”

  “Oh, great.” Lexi laughed. “She’s going to piss off the Werewolves.”

  Chapter 34

  You can’t sit on your ass, wallowing in self pity, if you want to survive.

  Jax’s half-conscious mind remembered the first time she’d heard that sentence.

  “What are you, four?” The voice had come from above her, full of impatience and disgust. But also something else, something worse. Pity.

  Jax had looked up at a blond boy with perfect features, and wished her eyes could shoot daggers. She hadn’t spoken to another human being in five days.

  “No.” Too hungry to feel more than irritation at the insult, she had mumbled. “I’m seven.”

  “This is no place for a seven year old,” he informed her, sniffing as he flipped blond hair out of his bright blue eyes. Jax thought with annoyance that he was the probably most beautiful person she had ever seen.

  She shrugged. She was pretty sure the places she’d been up to this point were even worse for seven year olds.

  The boy threw something, and it landed in her lap. “Here. You look starving.”

  Jax stared at the Snickers bar hardly believing her eyes. A fierce hunger had begun clawing at her insides for days, and she’d wondered if it would eventually tear her apart, spreading numbness through her arms and legs in spite of the Los Angeles heat, until she couldn’t feel anything at all. She opened her mouth to say something, to maybe thank the boy, who wasn’t much older than she was, when he snapped, “Eat that and go home. You’ll die out here. Trust me. I know.”

  And he walked away.

  Asshole, she had thought.

  Jax had begun to run out of words that weren’t bad words even though she knew logically that being seven meant she shouldn’t say them. They were only for grown ups; everyone knew that.

  The next time she saw Beautiful Boy was in an abandoned construction site. Jax spent all of her time hiding in the shells of empty buildings and trying to distract herself from her hunger. She’d had nothing since the Snickers bar, and that was days ago.

  When Beautiful Boy burst into her hiding place, Jax bit back another curse. She had failed to rig the second floor window. She had been so tired the night before she hadn’t been able to keep her eyes open to set the traps. So she had told herself it was okay, that the window was too high above the ground, and so small, no one could surprise her from that direction.

  She had been wrong.

  She woke only when someone stepped on her hand. Jax froze at the pain, hoping she wouldn’t be noticed. Beautiful Boy was distracted by commotion in the alley that sounded like teenagers.

  But when he sank to the floor, he did see her, and his eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything. He put a finger to his lips, warning her to be quiet, and Jax was so insulted that she almost said something.

  Glaring daggers at his perfect face, she reached out and pulled the rope she’d rigged up the night before, sending every bit of construction material and trash she could lift spilling into the street a block away, at the far end of the alley. With a collective shout, the teenagers rushed in the wrong direction.

  Beautiful Boy pointed at her with raised eyebrows and she nodded.

  “I’m Lucas,” he whispered. “Thanks.”

  Jax shrugged, ignoring his hand. “Thanks for the candy bar.”

  “What’s your name?”

  Panic filled her mind, causing every fake name she had imagined to vanish, leaving nothing but blank, white noise, and Jax realized she was shaking her head at him.

  He rose, dusting off his filthy jeans, and disappeared into the bowels of the half-finished building, calling, “Okay, Seven Year Old. See you around.”

  His footsteps did not trigger a single one of her alarms.

  Jax didn’t see Beautiful Boy—Lucas—for another few weeks. Maybe more. It was hard to keep track of time.

  Find food, water, shelter. Hide. Don’t let anyone see you.

  Jax smelled horrible, her stench even making herself gag. Her once beautiful hair had turned to a nest of filthy tangles that fell off in her fingers. Her clothes looked like something she might find in a dumpster. Something that, if it touched food, she would probably not eat it. Or probably now she would.

  The hardest part about being on the streets was making sure no one saw her. There was so much waiting. She would get so sleepy searching… searching. Finally finding a place to hide, to sleep, just for a little while.

  And then a little while would become all day, judging by the light. It had begun to happen more and more often. A deep, dreamless sleep, without hunger or thirst.

  Jax knew it wasn’t safe.

  But she was so, so sleepy.

  A part of her wished she could fall asleep and never wake up. Another part of her knew that was exactly what would happen eventually if she kept living like this. But so far, her hunger would eventually nudge her awake. Some determined, twisted will to survive that she recognized even at the age of seven, no matter how hard she tried to deny it, would push her on to another search for food.

  “You’re still out here.” The voice called down at her from an unfinished balcony in another unfinished house, jolting her awake. Jax scowled up into the perfect face of Beautiful Boy, who had again evaded all of her traps.

  Maybe he has Snickers.

  He seemed to recognize the hunger in her eyes, because his expression softened. “C’mon. Follow me.”

  Don’t. You can’t trust anyone.

  Jax didn’t move to follow him, instead gathering up the filthy blanket she had found in the park and scrambling backward. He held out one perfect hand. “Look, I won’t hurt you,” he said, then made a sound of impatient irritation when she remained immobile. “I know where to get food.”

  At the thought of food, Jax gave in, her limbs moving as if she were a controlled puppet. Her numb and cramped legs protested as she tried to keep up with Lucas. He led her through a maze of alleys, finally stopping at the back of a convenience store, some small mom and pop place.

  Giving her a crooked grin, he fiddled with the lock.

  “We have three minutes once the alarm goes off, okay?” Lucas said. “Fill a bag with as much as you can, and don’t make a mess. If they don’t see anything missing, people don’t bother to change their security system.”

  Jax watched Lucas play with the lock until something clicked, and then he sprinted to the front of the store, grabbed two canvas bags, and began filling them with food. A moment later, a screeching alarm rang out across the gloomy aisles of food. The sound urged Jax’s tired limbs into action.

  The alarm panel was to her right, and Jax pulled out the butter knife she’d been carrying and pried it open. She studied the insides carefully in the dim light, and the secrets gave themselves up to her freely, as if they were old friends. Within seconds, the store was silent again.

  She looked up to see Lucas staring at her, his mouth open in awe.

  “You did that? You turned it off?”

  Jax shrugged. “It’s easy for me…”

  Lucas grinned, looking even more beautiful than before. He moved both bags of stolen food into one hand. “C’mon, Seven Year Old.” He grabbed her arm, pulling Jax through the door behind him. “The cops will still call the owners. But that was awesome!”

  They ate almost everything in the bags within an hour, saving only a few protein bars for later, and Jax could feel her toes for the first time in what seemed like months.

  “Do you think you can do that on any security system?” Lucas asked around a mouthful of trail mix. “What you did back there?”

  “Probably not any,” Jax said. “But I can try.”

  Someone had parked their bicycle against a building and Jax let Lucas pretend it was his. They rode around, her feet on the bike’s stunt pegs, her hands holding onto Lucas’s shoulders, her fists full of his jacket. After finding cl
othes stores with weak security systems, they each picked out two brand new outfits and stuffed them into new backpacks. Then Lucas rode the bike to a house where he assured Jax the owners were out of town.

  Seeing Jax’s hesitation, Lucas said, “I get it. You don’t trust me. But I swear on the soul of my mother, Seven Year Old, it’s just an empty house. We’ll take showers, put on our new clothes, and after that, if you don’t want to be my partner in crime, I’ll drop you off wherever you want, and you can never see my ugly face ever again for the rest of your life. Okay?”

  The thought of being alone again filled Jax with dread, but she shrugged, looking at the sky. “Okay.”

  Thinking about it later, Jax realized Lucas must have recognized her, even in the near-darkness, the moment she came out of the bathroom with a clean face.

  He had blinked once, then turned back to searching the kitchen cabinets.

  For the next few days Jax and Lucas wandered the city, getting lost in the sprawl that is The City of Angels, planning and scheming. Lucas always made sure Jax wore a hat. And after that first time, he never once asked her name.

  When the men took her, and stuffed her into a filthy trunk that reeked of gasoline and spilled liquor, Jax thought for one horrible moment that Lucas had given her up, that maybe he had problems too big to solve on his own and had used her to claw his way out of them. But she remembered how, just an hour before, he had told her that he was going to scout for food, and reminded her to stay out of sight during the day. He’d warned her to stay hidden when she’d said how warm and sunny the park looked.

  Jax forced the thought of Beautiful Boy’s betrayal from her mind. Someone, somewhere, had seen her. And recognized her.

  When the trunk was opened after a suffocating drive, Jax could see nothing but flattened cars, stacked high on all sides. Tattooed arms pulled her to her feet, and the raspy voice of a chain smoker told her to keep her mouth shut.

  Jax didn’t look at the men’s faces. She told herself if she didn’t look at their faces, maybe they would leave her alone. Maybe this could all be just a nightmare she would wake up from.

  The only problem was Jax knew what it was to live in a nightmare. She knew what pain and suffering awaited her if she were ever sent back. As the police car approached, Jax felt herself begin to tremble.

  “Check it out,” one of the men said, laughter in his words. “She’s scared of cops.”

  The police officer didn’t look like the ones who had come to her school. This one wore jeans and a T-shirt and cowboy boots. He crouched down in front of Jax and took off his sunglasses to peer at her face. His teeth were yellow and crooked, his face mottled red underneath a greying crew cut. There was something wrong with the look in his eyes.

  “Well, well, well…” He patted Jax’s shoulder before putting a fat envelope in the tattooed man’s hand with a loud smack.

  His grip was like iron as he turned Jax toward his car.

  She heard cursing voices behind them. “Hey! This isn’t what we agreed on,” Chainsmoker said.

  “Just be thankful I didn’t shoot you all for kidnapping and traumatizing America’s favorite missing child,” he called, breaking into hoarse laughter that turned to a cough.

  Jax was pushed into the backseat, and the doors closed, drowning out the sound of their protests. There were no door handles in the back of the police car, no way to escape.

  I will never, ever go back.

  But the police officer hadn’t taken her to her parent’s house, or to the police station. He’d taken her instead to an old and falling down house in the desert. There were two other men there, and Jax knew they were policemen, too. They argued about money and shoved her into the basement, where she soon lost track of time all over again, eating what little the men gave her, and trying to stay awake.

  She looked for ways to escape, but the locks on the doors were heavy, and the entire basement was stripped bare. They fed her on Styrofoam plates and gave her no spoon. There was no bathroom, only a toilet with a sealed tank and a plastic bucket of water that was refilled not nearly often enough.

  It was obvious they’d set this place up to hold prisoners, and Jax shuddered at the thought that they’d used it before.

  When she realized there was no escaping, Jax thought about ways to kill herself, but that, too, wasn’t easy. There was nothing obvious she could use… no chair, bed sheet, or convenient ceiling fixture. Also, a voice in her head kept trying to convince her things would turn out okay if she just waited. Maybe the men would never call her parents. Maybe they would just let her go.

  Jax curled into a ball in the darkest corner of the basement, frustrated rage filling her mind, and she cried for the first time since she’d run away. And then she slept.

  “You can’t sit on your ass wallowing in self pity if you want to survive.” A familiar voice snapped her back to consciousness, a scream in the dusty silence, and Jax jumped, looking up through puffy eyes.

  Lucas leaned over her, scowling. “C’mon, Seven Year Old, you’re smarter than this.”

  “How did you…?”

  “What? Find you? Get in here?” Lucas shrugged as he flipped golden hair out of his eyes. “Crooked cops aren’t as good at keeping secrets as they think. And the street has a thousand eyes. Besides, kidnappers get hungry. And no matter what they tell themselves, eventually they always crack, get complacent, and order pizza. I’m not admitting to anything, you understand, but sometimes the pizza can be, shall we say, seasoned.”

  “You did that? For… me?”

  “Of course,” Lucas looked offended. “No one kidnaps my sister and gets away with it. Now get up. Let’s go.”

  It had been the first time Lucas called her his sister, but Jax had known what is was to have a brother from the moment she met him.

  She had looked up at his beautiful face. “My name is Jacqueline.”

  Lucas had reached a hand to her. “No it’s not,” he said cheerfully. “It’s Jax.”

  Get up, Jax. It’s time to survive.

  Chapter 35

  Asha watched Ranya consider the group, leaning closer toward Kelakha’s cage, where he was held so tightly she worried the bars had injured him when they closed in around his wings. The Witch glanced back at Asha, her smile filled with hungry wonder.

  “What’s this?” She poked Kelakha with one metal nail.

  He didn’t react.

  “I never heard of a Guard who could turn to a… thing. Interesting.” She straightened, waving a hand. “We’ll have to keep this one alive, ladies. Long enough to run some tests, anyway.”

  Ursala lay crumpled and unconscious within the metal ball holding him, and Aquila sat with his back to everyone, trying and failing to control his simmering hatred.

  Asha… we failed.

  She stared up at rows of similar cages stacked like a hive against the pocked-stone, and tried not to smell the fear and stench of rotting death coming from them.

  We haven’t failed. Jax is—

  Jax? Asha felt Aquila’s contempt for the civilian. She’s huddled in her cage, whimpering like a baby.

  Just wait.

  Ranya spoke softly to one of the Witches, and then, with a swirl of silk and a wave of a clawed hand, she left the room. The Witch who remained glared at the five of them for a long three seconds, and then threw herself onto a couch of sorts, made of scaled material, and began searching through Jax’s survival pack.

  Asha waited.

  The more she studied the prison, the more she thought it wasn’t a prison at all, but some sort of macabre pantry. In addition to the living cages, body parts hung on hooks along one wall. And something dark stained a scarred table that was scattered with jars of foggy glass above a floor with a drain.

  Asha shivered against the bars pinning her feathers and tried to concentrate on other things.

  Five Urnayu entered the room every nine minutes, seemingly on patrol. The spidery creatures would spread out and check the cages of the new pri
soners, inspecting the gears that held them closed with cold indifference. After exactly one minute in the room, they made clicking noises at each other and left. Asha watched them come through eight times, counting the seconds. The pattern never changed.

  Jax was watching them, too, and after the spiders left for the ninth time, Asha heard her take a deep breath.

  Okay, pay attention. She’s about to save your ass.

  Your blind faith in this civilian is getting a little—

  “Help me,” Jax cried out, reaching one hand out of her cage. “Please! You have to help me.”

  The Witch glanced up from sniffing a food packet and regarded Jax with bored nonchalance.

  “They’ll kill me. Please. I’m not like them. I never wanted to come here.” Jax was sobbing, tears streaming down her face. “They forced me to come with them. They killed my sister and grandmother, and they dragged me with them.”

  Her grandma? Seriously? Just kill me now.

  The Witch rose slowly and began walking toward Jax’s cage, her head tilted to the side in curiosity.

  “You’re not Guard?” The Witch peered at Jax, and Asha saw the moment that comprehension and confusion clashed in her eyes as she realized Jax was a civilian.

  “A what? I don’t even know what that means!” Jax’s eyes were wide with hysterical fear. If Asha didn’t know that Jax had read almost every book on the history of The Infernal Guard, she would’ve believed her herself.

  “Please,” Jax whispered, pleading still. “You have to believe me. I just want to get away from them.”

  The Witch took another step toward Jax, her eyes narrowed. “So what do they want you for, then?”

  Jax sobbed, her voice rising into a high whine, and Asha saw Ursala tense. His eyes stayed closed, but he was awake. At the angle his leg was trapped in, Asha was impressed he remained perfectly still.

  “I don’t know!” Jax wailed. “We were just… we were at the wrong place at the wrong time. My grandmother, she fought them. That big one there, she bit him, really hard.” Jax sounded like she could hardly speak for the fear and horror of the memory. “So he just… and, and then… I don’t know why they brought me with them. And they… did things.” Jax trailed off into hysterical sobs. Then, eyes wide, she gripped the cage. “Listen. They want to find someone, and they’ll do anything, kill anyone, to get him back. I know things about their plan. I’ll tell you everything, just please get me away from these… these monsters.”