“Collette?” I said, though I couldn’t hear myself speak.
“Come with me, Amber. I will guide you.”
A hand reached out to me from the darkness, cold and soft, and for a moment I hesitated but then I took it. I pulled hard, trying to yank Collette out of the darkness and bring her closer to me. I didn’t want to be alone in here, but I also wanted to have my sister next to me one more time, one last time. I didn’t care that I couldn’t see her. Didn’t care where I was or what my deviation would do to the spell. I tugged and tugged, fighting against the resistance keeping her wedged inside the sphere of chaos around me.
Then I heard a blood-curdling, two-toned roar come out of the dark, and the hand I was pulling grabbed my wrist and dragged me into the chaos.
Chapter Twenty Five
Whether hours had passed or minutes, Damien didn’t know. The darkness and silence was total and complete. Enveloping. Maddening. He thought he could hear voices at times, whispering from between cracks in the stone walls. They couldn’t have been real, but they sounded real enough to him and that was all that mattered.
Struggling was no use, and pulling against the chains only caused a great deal of pain—pain he wasn’t sure he would be able to endure for much longer. “How the hell did Amber do it?” he asked into the dark, just to hear the sound of his own voice. “Stuck in the dark for days and weeks, alone.”
But that didn’t matter right now. Damien knew he wouldn’t be stuck here for weeks or even days. Acheris wanted to know what he knew, wanted access to the information he had, and he knew if her patience started to run thin she would kill him out of frustration. All he knew about her pointed to the eventuality of Damien’s death. The only edge he had was the fact that Acheris, for all her perceptions and her ability to read the future, somehow couldn’t read Damien and she needed something from him.
Otherwise he would have been dead already.
The door to his cellar opened suddenly and quickly. There was no fanfare this time, no glowing light, and no Acheris. The figure breaking the light spilling in from beyond the door was a slight shadow of a person, barely recognizable until she stepped inside. Lily. Damien perked up and watched as she closed the door and approached with a tray in her hand. The smell—the warm aroma of roasted parsnips, chicken, and potatoes—coming off the tray made Damien’s mouth salivate, and the sight of that swishing cup of water turned his knees to jelly.
They gave way and Damien slipped down, but his chains held him up with his arms stretched wide.
“What is this?” he asked.
Lily placed the tray on the floor, picked a piece of chicken up with a fork, and brought it to his mouth. The smell was intoxicating. He hadn’t eaten in hours. But when the food touched his lips, he couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth and receive it.
“Please,” she said, “You need to eat, Damien.”
He looked at her, then at the food, and his stomach got the better of him. Damien opened his mouth and chewed the piece of chicken until it was ready to swallow. His body sang out at the taste of food, real food, and he asked for more. Lily obliged, carefully feeding him and allowing him to drink. When the food and water were finished Lily set the tray aside and sat down in the center of the room, in front of Damien.
He had forgotten for a moment that she was supposed to be dead.
“You’re dead,” he said.
Lily shook her head. “Sometimes I wish that were true,” she said. “Beats this.”
“I’m having a hard time believing you’re you,” he said.
“I know. I don’t expect, after everything that’s happened, that you’d believe I’m really me. But I am me, Damien.”
“I’m supposed to just take your word?”
Lily looked up at him—into him, with her big brown eyes—and sighed. “No. But what if I can prove it?”
“Prove it? How? And why?”
“Because I’m just as much a prisoner here as you are. I want to get out too, Damien. I want to go back to living my life.”
“You don’t look like a prisoner.”
“I’ve been here long enough to earn my right to walk around.”
“How long?”
Lily closed her eyes and looked away. The memory she was accessing seemed painful. Damien’s heart leapt for her, but he held himself. “I remember dying,” she said, “I remember him holding me under the water and taking my life away from me. I also remember the bracelet falling off my wrist and into the river. It was the last thing I saw before… before my life was over.”
Damien had almost forgotten about the bracelet. Amber had found it in the Geordie River one morning after… after following a raven. He said nothing and allowed her to continue.
“After Amber found it,” she said, “I followed her. I helped her find the truth; helped you both. I can remember that part of my... my existence… as if it happened in a dream. I was so angry, Damien. And lost. You were the only ones who could help me, and you did. You caught him, and Amber lived.”
“Then what happened?” he asked. There was one detail Amber had mentioned to him about what she experienced moments before waking up after her attack on the Ever Dark Mesa.
“I remember the ravens,” she said, tearing up, “I remember finding Joanna… finding peace.”
Damien suddenly went cold, ice cold. His stomach churned and threatened to expel everything that had just gone down his throat. Could she have known that, he thought. It was certainly possible, considering Acheris may have been listening in—spying—on Damien and Amber since the very beginning. There were few things which hadn’t been spoken about freely during that time between the Sheriff’s attack and the attempted demonic possession of Amber Lee. It wasn’t insane to think Lily could have been fed this information or, worse still, that this wasn’t Lily at all but some kind of simile.
If Acheris hadn’t been spying on that particular conversation, though, then this was Lily and that meant… Damien had his sister back.
“I just…” she said, “I just woke up one day and she was there.”
“When?”
Damien could tell Lily didn’t want to say. She battled with it for a second. “She brought me back from the dead only a few weeks after you had put my soul to rest.”
“A few… weeks?” Damien asked. “But that means you’ve been alive… all this time… and I didn’t—I didn’t know!”
“Damien, don’t,” she said, “Don’t beat yourself up.”
“Lily,” he said, his eyes softening. “Lily… it’s you.”
She sprang up and hugged him. “Damien,” she said, sobbing into his shoulder, “I’ve missed you so much.”
“There were so many things I never got to say to you.”
“It’s okay,” she said, stroking his hair, “You don’t have to say them. I’m here.”
“No,” he said, “I have to. I wasn’t there. I should have come with you and not chosen to stay in San Francisco.”
“You had no choice. Natalie was there and you needed to watch over her. You know that as much as I do.”
“I fucked up so badly, Lily. I messed everything up.”
“You didn’t mess anything up.” She kissed his cheek, pulled away, and looked at him. It was dark in the room, but there was light enough for them to see each other. “Listen to me very carefully.”
Damien nodded.
“You need to do what she says,” Lily said.
“Lily, I can’t.”
“If you do what she says she’ll let us leave. Life… it’s never going to be the same, not after this, but it’ll be life, Damien. For both of us.”
“If I give her what she wants, she’ll use it for her own ends. As long as she lives, we won’t be safe from her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. I’ve been fighting her for a long time.”
“And she’s been fighting Amber,” Lily said, “You got involved in this war because of my death. I’m not dead. You h
ave every right to choose to back out.”
“She wants Amber dead, Lily,” Damien said, “After all I’ve been through, I won’t just walk away and let that happen.”
Lily cupped his face and stroked his cheeks. Her hands were warm and soft, everything he remembered from when he was a child hiding scared in a closet as his parents and their cult summoned dark forces beyond the comprehension of his young mind. “She’s willing to make a deal,” Lily said.
“A deal?” Damien asked, “What kind of deal?”
“Amber doesn’t have to die.”
“I… don’t understand.”
“If you give Acheris the demon and Amber surrenders her magick, she’ll let everyone walk.”
Damien took a beat, a breath, and processed the information he had just received. Acheris? A deal? It didn’t seem like anything he thought she would ever do. Acheris was ruthless and relentless in her pursuits. That she would just abandon them, or settle for anything less than the exact outcome she wanted indicated one of two things; she was tired of the chase, or she was desperate for… something.
“I’m… having trouble believing this,” Damien said. “Even coming from you.”
“You have to believe it, Damien. It’s the truth. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
Maybe not, but Acheris would. “I don’t know if—if Amber will go for that. Surrendering her power? I just don’t know.”
“You have to convince her. It’s the only way we all walk away from this forever.”
Damien stared at her, trying to get a read on her and failing miserably. His magick was gone, and the love he felt for his sister was clouding his ability to think rationally. He wanted so badly to leave with her. Maybe they’d go back to San Francisco. Amber and Aaron could finally have the life they were meant to have together.
Maybe giving Acheris what she wanted was the only thing to do.
***
Whatever that was, it wasn’t Collette. It couldn’t have been. Something dragged me into the still chaos of the Nether and now nightmares were coming at me from all sides. Hands, teeth, and nails as sharp as razors flailed about me like I was trapped in the eye of a tornado, staring up and beyond the edge of the known universe. Falling, falling, and falling.
The wolf howled from deep within my heart and tore its way out to fight the chaos nail for nail, tooth for tooth, but I continued to fall until suddenly I wasn’t falling anymore. I hit the ground hard, shoulder first, and lay dazed for an instant before scrambling to my feet again. Evil was all around me. This place reeked of pain and suffering and hopelessness, much like the dark place in my soul where the other lives. The wolf knew it was still there, lurking, waiting. Only the wolf now understood what it was; it was prey.
People, I thought as the smell of sweat and food came to me. When I spun around in a hard arc I saw them standing there, frozen in terror, and staring at me. It was Damien, but it was also… Lily? The wolf had never smelled her before, but I knew who she was. I had smelled her essence, felt her spirit, and had seen her pictures. But something was wrong.
I lunged and grabbed Lily by the throat, pinning her up against a wall with my powerful arms. Damien yelled at me to stop, but the thought that played over and over in my mind was you’re supposed to be dead, you’re supposed to be dead, you’re supposed to be dead.
Lily struggled and Damien let out a scream that came from a place of such visceral fear. I could smell it—fear—oozing out of them both in great waves. Fear of me, of my Power, of my body. And then I saw the chains holding Damien to the wall. Memories of my own incarceration came rushing to the fore and I dropped Lily where she stood. Then I grabbed one of the metal chains where it connected against the wall and pulled until it gave way under my might and came clean loose off the wall with a loud clang.
“Free,” I said in a deep, guttural voice.
Damien nodded. “Free,” he replied, “But don’t hurt Lily.”
I whipped my head around hard and sniffed the air. Evil was everywhere. I wasn’t sure if it was coming from her, from Damien, or from this place, but I should have known I would have trouble in whatever blasted sanctum this was. The wolf pulled its claws out of my mind and receded like the evening tide, letting me take control—and my own shape—again as I walked toward Lily.
I realized then that, somehow, my clothes weren’t ripped and I hadn’t been torn to shreds by magick wards. Count your blessings, I thought.
“Is that really you?” I asked Lily.
Lily nodded, though she backed away from me as I approached. “You’re a… a…”
“It’s a long story,” I said. I turned to Damien. “We need to get you out of here.”
“How?” he asked. One of his hands was now free and he was working hard to remove the pin on the other manacle. “I mean, how did you get in here?”
“I had help,” I said, approaching. I helped him remove both of his restraints and he rubbed his wrists. In the dark it was difficult to see his face, but I saw him smile. I returned it. “We don’t have time for niceties,” I said. “Get your sister close. I’m going to tear down these wards and you’re going to get a message to Frank.”
“Frank? Where is he?”
“Waiting to pick us up… I hope.”
“You hope?”
“Another long story.”
Lily rushed to Damien’s side and I stood in the center of the room, reaching out with my invisible senses to grope around in the dark for the source of Acheris’s wards. In my mind they appeared as spots of red writing scratched into the walls; writing centered around a glowing inverted pentacle which served as the anchor to Acheris’s spell.
I stretched my hands, curled them into fists, and imagined the Moonfire bursting out of the seams in the wall and ripping the writing apart. The room seemed to lighten in an instant, as if the wards were causing the unnatural darkness, and when I thought Damien had enough room to send a telepathic nudge to Frank through the hole I had made in the wards, I stopped.
Damien closed his eyes and I waited with my heart pulsing in my throat, but then the only door into the room opened; and she was there.
“Brava,” said Acheris. The sight of her made my skin crawl—those black eyes, her pointed teeth, her pale flesh—and I scowled. “This is a pretty daring escape attempt, wouldn’t you say? Breaking into my sanctum and releasing my guests without my knowledge.”
The wolf raged behind my eyes, in my heart, in my throat. She killed Collette. That bitch killed Collette! I could almost see myself tearing out of my skin, plunging my claws into the soft tissue of her throat, and pulling it clean out of her. I wondered what it would look like, what it would feel like, and sound like, but I pushed the wolf down.
Soon.
“I knew you’d know I was here,” I said.
“Of course I would, Amber. You didn’t think someone like you could go anywhere without making magick ripples one could see from space, did you?”
“No,” I said, “In fact, I counted on it. Now you’re here, and we can finish this.”
“End me? Heavens no. What ever will I do?” she asked. Her cocky, fanged smile upturned into a glare. “You don’t have the power to kill me, Red Witch,” she said, “And even if you did, you wouldn’t try.”
“Why not?”
“Because in the time it takes you to strike me down, I will have destroyed them first.”
I craned my head over my shoulder and stared at Damien and Lily. He was free of the restraints, but had I caused a big enough hole in the magick wards in the room to enable him to help me in a fight? Or, at the very least, defend himself and Lily from her attacks?
“You leave them out of this,” I said. “I’m here. I’m the one you want. Let them go.”
Acheris’s glare became a smile again. She clasped her hands by her belly and said “There will be plenty of time for negotiations later. For now, please accompany me into my main chambers.”
I turned toward Damien again. He nodded, and that was all
he had to tell me. He had gotten the message through to Frank. Now it was only a matter of time. Still, Frank wouldn’t get here in the next minute or two. The witches needed to cast the spell again, and I didn’t know how long that would take.
“I’ll come back for you,” I said, “Both of you.”
Damien nodded and took my hand. There was something in his palm. I took it and, carefully, pivoted against Acheris’s line of sight and tucked whatever he had given me into my pocket. In my mind I heard his voice. Keep it hidden, Damien said, you’ll know what to do with it when the time comes.
“Okay,” I said, hoping Acheris hadn’t detected Damien’s telepathy. “I’ll go with you.”
“Excellent,” she said, extending her hand. “Please, come this way.”
As I walked out of the room, I noticed a dark skinned, hooded man step inside behind me. He had a fresh set of chains in his hands and a knife in his belt. When the door to Damien’s cell slammed shut, I wondered if I had just sentenced he and his sister to death by leaving them alone and choosing not to fight.
Frank, I thought, you’d better hurry, witch.
Chapter Twenty Six
The man with the knife and the chain shoved Lily aside and told her to stay back. He looked at Damien, then at the broken manacles on the floor, and then at the chains he was holding. Nothing had to be said for Damien to understand what the jailor wanted—Damien back in chains. Simple enough. Only Damien didn’t want to get back into chains. If Amber had damaged Acheris’s wards with her magick, he could do way more damage with the power he had within himself.
She had underestimated him.
The hooded man circled around Damien and pulled his hands behind his back. He could see Lily standing in the corner of the room, the witch that was too terrified to move, and didn’t blame her for her inaction. He wondered if she even had powers, what with her having been resurrected—if that was even possible.
His eyes went to the door. It was shut, but it wasn’t locked. If he was fast, he could get to it before the hooded man could; and then he could lock the door behind himself and watch the hooded man be consumed by—no, that wasn’t a good plan. Then what? What does he do? Does he go and find Acheris and risk her killing Amber on the spot, or killing Lily? He had already played an ace by giving Amber the pendant he had around his neck. Now he had to do everything he could to get Lily out, even if that meant giving in to what Acheris wanted.
The Amber Lee Boxed Set Page 105
