“Do you have any idea just what kind of monster might already be brewing here?” he asked as he finally released his hold on her chin and moved his hand to her abdomen. “Did you even fight him? Or did you just spread these legs and welcome the beast between them?” his hand moved to her pussy and she froze.
“You don’t want a Demon’s leftovers, do you?” she taunted, chancing that it might send him over the edge, but she figured it was better to be dead than to let someone like him touch her.
“Bitch,” he said as his mouth curled with hatred. “Did you know the Guild breeds librarians specifically based off their parent’s gene signature? All of the others in your field had been matched by the Guild, except yours. Of course, your mother held the right genes, but your father, no one knew who he was. Like mother, like daughter? Was she as much of a whore as you?” he asked.
“My mother died giving birth, but you already know that,” she replied as she glared at him.
“Are you sure about that? The Guild has strict laws in place for the ones who don’t follow the rules. You wouldn’t be the first child to come from an emergency surgery due to the mother passing her expiration date.”
“What the hell does that mean?” she asked.
“They kill their own people more often than any of you thought. In fact, young Adam was supposed to die on the mission to the Dark Tower because no one knew who his parents were and the Guild doesn’t chance unknowns. Synthia was kept close after the Fae attacked her parents, or who we thought were her parents. They kept their little secret well, but then their station within the Guild allowed them to do so. You were kept close, in case anything evolved from the man who donated to your DNA. How many of your friends went missing while you were kept in that library?” he asked as he stood back up, towering over her.
“Only a few,” she whispered, but they had been sent to other Guilds, right? It wasn’t strange for people to be shuffled around to other active Guilds. “The Enforcers who left for Seattle?” she whispered the question.
“That was me. I sent them to their deaths. Couldn’t have them mucking up my glorious win when I took down the Spokane Guild ahead of schedule. Alden was growing suspicious and the Spokane Guild took a lot longer to infiltrate because of the old bastard. Years—it took us years to break into the ranks and become what was needed to earn the trust and respect of everyone there.”
Olivia was about to curse when one of the men returned. “We found it,” the man announced, his eyes moving to where Olivia was on the floor. “We still need her?” he asked, his own eyes morphing from green to blue and back again. Mages.
“Unless you got another Witch in this place, her blood is the only thing will open the doors.”
“Get up,” the second man said as he reached down roughly and pulled her up to her feet. “Try anything and I’ll slit your fucking throat,” he warned, waving a black folding knife at her that looked like one of the Benchmade Bedlam knives that the Guild issued to Enforcers.
“Jeffery, we need her alive. The blood of a dead Witch won’t open the doors to the catacombs.”
She knew it!
There were catacombs beneath the cathedral!
She cried out in alarm as Cyrus pulled her to her feet by her hair. Tears burned in her eyes from the pain as she forced herself to move. Her mind was numbed against the blade Cyrus once again held against her flesh, and her feet moved automatically, as if autopilot had taken over. She was being used once again, this time, though, she’d be damned if she gave them what they wanted.
Last time she hadn’t been the only one who had suffered for their actions; these sick, twisted assholes had escaped any sort of prosecution because no one knew they were responsible. She’d been taken prisoner. They hadn’t suffered at all. She’d been accused of the treachery that these men had been guilty of. They had lied to her, used her, and innocent people had suffered for it.
Marie used to say that life was funny in the way that the guilty often never were accused of their crimes and oftentimes ended up being the winner of whatever game they’d played. That sometimes you have to turn the odds to your favor, play the same game as the enemy, and make yourself the winner of their game.
“The catacombs are real, then?” she asked, her mind processing what she could do to change the odds to her favor without her ending up skewered at the end of the knife Cyrus held to her back.
“They are,” he said roughly as they started down a set of stairs that led to the lower level of the cathedral. “The first of our kind helped build this cathedral. They kept the catacombs a secret, even though it took a large effort on their part. Imagine building this back then, and all of the work they would have had to do to make sure it remained hidden. The catacombs are so vast that it’s believed they also run through to the college,” he explained, and for a brief moment, Olivia knew why she’d so easily believed him.
She’d trusted this man because he’d been with the Guild since before she had been born. People who helped raise you weren’t supposed to turn on you. Life wasn’t supposed to be that cruel. It wasn’t supposed to turn your mentors into your enemies, and have them dragging your ass down an eerie set of steps by knifepoint; it just wasn’t.
“Why did you turn on us?” she chanced the question.
“I was never with you to begin with,” he answered harshly. “I was born here in this world. My mother was a whore, much like you have become. She thought she could make one of the Fae love her, but he didn’t care for her in the end. She even told him about me, and he beat her until she bled out; luckily, the Guild found her as she lay dying and cut me out of her corpse. So you see you and me have similar situations. Both of our mothers were worthless whores, but where I went along the right path and joined with the Mages, you took the path of our mothers. Did you even fight him?” he repeated coldly, “or did you just spread those legs and invite the enemy in with welcoming eagerness?”
“You left me to die, and yes, I did fight. Right up until I learned that he wasn’t the enemy—you are. You killed hundreds of innocent people. You didn’t have to do it; we trusted you. We were on the same side!” she said, her eyes moving over the stone walls as she processed the rooms they walked through.
“I was never on their side, not even as a child. I wanted them to all suffer because they were weak!” he said cruelly. “They could have killed so many of them, but instead they only sought to punish them. The deaths in Spokane were necessary for the greater good. We needed public goodwill so the Humans will support us when we eradicate the Fae. They are monsters! They are nothing more than heartless beings that feed off of humanity. They deserve to be slaughtered and you know it! The Mages have iron mines, and soon they will move the iron into Faery to weaken her even more, and then the war will start. I will not be on the losing side, ever, so shut up and move,” he growled as he pushed her hard enough to make her lose her footing and fall to the cold ground.
Once again he used her hair to pull her up, but at least they were done with the stairs. They stood in front of a wall that had been built with stones. She was so busy looking at it that she didn’t see the attack until it was too late. He released her hair and reached for her hand, using the other one to slice through the palm of her hand with a combat knife. The knife was ridiculously sharp as it left a deep gash across her palm, and blood spattered on the floor. She yelped and fought his hold as he gripped her wrist painfully and pushed it against the wall, smearing her blood over the stones in the process.
“You asshole!” she sobbed as pain shot up her arm as her palm was pressed against the stone wall again. Another of the men punched her in the side of the head, causing her to see blackness, but it was short-lived as the room started to tremble, and the wall began to crumble, revealing a wooden door.
“We did it,” Cyrus said, ignoring the hand he still held that was dripping blood profusely. He
eventually dropped it as glowing words appeared on the door. “What does it say?” he demanded as she brought her hand up and cradled it protectively to her chest.
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” she lied.
“Stupid bitch, what does it say?” he muttered as he reached for her hand and pushed on her wound viciously with his thumb.
“Ahh! It says only those true of heart can open the passageway!”
“Open it now, Grant,” he said to one of the men.
Olivia stepped back, or tried to. Jeffery held her captive as Grant placed his hand on the door and tried to force to open. He turned after a moment to say something, but his scream was the only thing that came out.
His body jerked in pain and he fell to the floor as his skin turned red as if he was being burned alive. The smell was horrific, and his eyes met and held hers as the whites turned blood red, and smoke escaped from his nose and mouth as he burned from the inside.
“Open it!” Cyrus snarled as he gripped Olivia, ignoring the man who was dying a horrifying death at their feet, and shoved her hard against the door.
Her heart raced painfully as she did as she was told, and the moment her fingers touched the ancient wood, it glowed and she felt calmness from within. She heard a bolt on the other side groan and slide and was able to push the door open. Cyrus shoved her haphazardly out of the way, into the room beyond the doorway.
The wood stopped glowing, but it didn’t matter because the walls inside the room glowed with the writing of the Guild or whoever had created this place. It didn’t look like any Guild she’d ever heard of or seen depicted. Skeletal remains littered the floor against the walls, as if the inhabitants had rested against it, and just died.
“It’s true, the believers died after sealing the secrets inside!” Cyrus said, answering her unasked question. “Do you have any idea what this place is?” he asked excitedly.
“No, but I’m sure you plan to tell me,” Olivia answered as she looked back to the man who remained on the floor still screaming for mercy.
The vast room they now stood in had numerous passageways that led to places unknown; each one had golden writing that glowed above it. Cyrus had been right; one was marked with a painted Gaelic symbol for the Holy Trinity, which she figured was the tunnel that would eventually lead to the college, as Trinity College was built over the former Priory of All Hallows.
She felt at odds, as if by opening that door, something bad had happened. Something worse than letting this monster inside this secret place; her stomach coiled with unease. Her palm burned from being cut with the blade, and her body thrummed with power that wasn’t hers.
Books lined shelves, along with skulls that had been painted in spelled ink. A few even glowed with the same mysterious words and ink that lined the walls. Water sounded in the distance, probably from where the builders had rerouted it away to form the catacombs.
The smell of the room was nothing compared to the man who was burning from the inside out; it stank of rot, dust, and mold. Piles of ancient scrolls lay abandoned beside those who had died inside the room, but she didn’t have time to examine them.
“Which one leads to the Fae relic?” Cyrus asked coldly, his eyes filling with greed as he turned to her.
“That one,” she said, pointing at the passageway that had a painted depiction of what the ancient texts had shown as the symbol for the Fae in the early days. It was a rough painting of an incredible beast that had extended wings, and looked as if it had been depicted by cavemen.
“Move,” Cyrus snapped as he pulled her unwillingly with him.
Chapter Forty-Two
Ristan entered the cathedral before anyone else. His mind was processing the scene as he moved deliberately through the cathedral towards where the scrolls indicated the entrance of the catacombs would be. Olivia was with Cyrus, and he knew the moment the man got his greedy, murderous fingers on that dagger, she was dead.
“Look,” Synthia said as she pointed to a knitted black scarf that had been discarded on the mosaic flooring. “Where are the stairs?” she continued as Ristan retrieved the scarf with a frown on his beautiful face. He’d glamoured the scarf for Olivia when they arrived in Dublin.
“This way,” he stated as he led the group of Fae through the cathedral to the stairs that led below it. “Watch for traps; if this was the Guild, they wouldn’t have left anything unguarded without some wards,” he directed.
Ristan’s heart raced and his insides felt as if they were going to explode with the fear he felt for Olivia. He’d never felt this fear for anyone, or this need to kill everything in his way to get to the little librarian who had woven herself into his soul.
“Blood,” he announced as they came to the stairs. His fingers touched the small streak of blood on the handrail; he brought them to his nose and felt a sense of unease. Why wasn’t she healing? Her wound should have closed, or at least stopped bleeding by now. Unless she was purposefully keeping it open to show him where she was?
They moved as a group down the stairs and through several rooms until they came to a sealed door with a charred corpse smoldering on the floor in front of it. His heart stopped until he identified it as being male, or at least it had been at one time. All that remained was a black skeletal figure who looked as if he’d been melted.
“What the hell is that?” Synthia asked, but it wasn’t directed to him and he watched as she semi-knelt next to the charred remains. “I’m going to guess this stupid asshole didn’t read the writing or else he didn’t take it seriously,” she announced. “We have a big problem, gentlemen,” she continued. “The door states that only the pure of heart can open it, and I’m going to make an educated guess and say that he wasn’t exactly pure of heart. If this is early Guild like you thought, it’s probably blocked against pure Fae blood.”
“Then break it down,” Ristan growled.
“It’s not that simple,” Syn explained. “It says blood is needed, and from the look of it, they used Olivia’s blood to open it.” She pointed to blood splattered on the wall and the ground.
“That’s not from a flesh wound,” Ristan whispered a sick feeling in his stomach. “He cut her badly,” he muttered with a tightening in his heart that was foreign to him.
“She’s alive,” Synthia said softly as she placed a reassuring hand on Ristan’s arm. “This door wouldn’t have opened for the dead, nor would be easy to steal blood from a living Witch to open it. They’d be smarter than that. He’d also want her alive just in case anything else called for her blood.”
“If she was able to open this door…” His words trailed off.
“Then she was never guilty of the crimes we thought she committed,” she said as she tightened her grip on his shoulder as she examined the door closer. “We need to find the nearest Witch, or someone who is pure of heart.”
Before they could turn to leave, Elijah moved to the door and placed his hand on it.
“Don’t do it,” Synthia warned, her head shaking slightly. “We can find another way,” she pleaded, but he kept his hand firmly on the wood as everyone froze.
“Fucking hell,” Ryder growled as he pulled Synthia to him, away from any danger.
After a moment had passed, the door glowed and everyone let go of the breath they’d been holding as the sound of a bolt grinding on the other side of the door echoed through the room. The door opened to reveal another room and Ristan felt his stomach uncoil as a sense of hope flooded through him.
“Which passageway, Flower?” he asked as he moved into the room and looked at the skeletal remains near the door as well as the bookshelves filled with ancient tomes, scrolls, and more skeletons that lined the room, along with the entrances to quite a few passageways that seemed to spread out to different locations beneath the city.
“Probably the one with your father
’s picture above it,” she said as she raised a finger to point at the one with a roughly painted image of the beast that her fiancée now housed inside of him. “I’m just guessing that it’s not Ryder since this room smells like it hasn’t had clean air in it since it was sealed and it’s the old king painted there.”
“How would they know? He was never overly fond of coming to this world, and only did so to perform the duty he was assigned to by Danu; even at that, he was typically circumspect so that Humans wouldn’t see him, that is unless he was seeking another woman to carry his babe,” Ristan said.
“The Guild knew a surprising amount of info about the Horde King, but nothing had been proven. Just rumors of his deeds and what to watch for to protect the Humans,” Synthia explained as they started down the narrow tunnel.
“Where do the others go?” Ryder asked as he moved closely behind Ristan and Synthia.
“I think one goes to Trinity College, one to the other cathedral, and I’m not sure yet about the others, but they could be like ours in Spokane, and used for storing things. The Guild worked closely with the different churches in the old days. You also have the Freemasons, who were around when this place was built. It’s likely that they converted whoever worshipped here to their cause. This place is heavily warded, but it’s also has a lot of power in here, so I’d bet that we can expect some fairly nasty surprises. See this,” she said as she paused to point out the gold veins that ran in the tunnel walls. “Those veins look to be gold, but we all know that gold wouldn’t be used in a spell, but it is used with the magic of Leylines. It’s a heavy metal, so it would absorb and conduct the magic.”
“Which would help hold whatever spells they used to protect this place,” Ryder answered as his own golden eyes glowed.
“It would also make them more powerful than a normal ward,” Ristan pointed out.
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