Only one way to find out.
I took two more soft steps and then crouched down, using my knife to lift a small section of woody debris.
Two Snakes lunged, knocking me backward. I scrambled to my feet, narrowly avoiding fangs, and severed both of their heads with one stroke.
I’d definitely lost the element of surprise. Dozens of snakes emerged from the beneath the bushes. I cursed and surveyed my options. Get the hell out of there, was the advice I’d have given anyone else, but I hated running away. And I hated letting a single one of those things live—especially with Ember trapped where they should have been.
I hacked and slashed, laughing when guts hit my face. Some of the Snakes escaped, but most ended up meeting my blade by the time it was over.
“Slow clap,” Kat said, and I turned to see her stepping out from a shadow. “Really, Taren, that was quite impressive.”
“Thanks for your help,” I said, wiping my blade on a tiny spot of clean still left on my jeans.
“I would have, but that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?” she said. “This whole lone wolf thing you’ve got going—what are you trying to prove?”
“I’m not a lone wolf,” I said, passing her.
“That’s right,” Kat said, grabbing my shoulder and spinning me around. “You’re not. Because I fight by your side. You took the same pledge I did.”
“You think I care about pledges?” I said, knocking her arm away. “Now?”
“I don’t think you care about anything,” she said. “Not even your own life. And that needs to change, because when Ember comes back—and she will come back—I am not going to tell her that you committed suicide by Snake.”
She was right, which only pissed me off more. Especially now that I was trying to make contact with Ember, I had to be more careful, for her sake.
“Message received,” I said. “Now stop following me.”
I left Kat in the courtyard and started toward my quarters.
As I passed below one of the tall towers, movement caught my eye. The building housed administrative offices, but the tower that stretched overhead was vacant—or supposed to be. I squinted, trying to see past the floodlights that had just been installed. You're seeing things, Hart, I told myself when a good sixty seconds had gone by with no other movement. I lowered my gaze and resumed walking.
I rounded the corner, and this time the movement was in the long shadow cast by the tower. I whipped my head up in to see a shape—a human shape—balanced on the crenelation. The breeze tugged at the shirt of the person, causing it to billow out around them. I couldn't tell if it was a man or woman.
I almost kept walking. I had enough on my plate and whoever it was, probably had a good reason for being up there. Could be an extra patrol, or someone who just wanted a place to think. But looking at the precariousness of the situation, I couldn't make myself buy it. I cursed under my breath and headed for the door.
I opened it easily. Some of those with offices might lock their individual doors for privacy, but this Institute—like mine in L.A.—ran mostly on the honor system.
I made my way to the stairwell and began my ascent. The lower floors had been outfitted with modern conveniences, like a handrail and central air, but before long, I found myself winding my way up in a tight square, the air getting thicker with each strike of my boots against the stone steps.
I began to feel winded and told myself it was the dense air, not the close quarters. I wasn't fond of tight spaces, but that had nothing to do with why I found myself sticking my head out of each windowless cutout I passed. It was good to know how high up I was, that's all.
When I neared the top, I began to creep—my Spidey sense was well known in my Guard set, and right now it was telling me that I needed the element of surprise. For what, I didn't know.
Slowly, I peered around the final corner. I'd been right: someone—a man, I could now tell—knelt dangerously near the edge of the long, and very fatal, drop below. His back was to me, so I took a silent step forward, and then another. I was close enough now to realize he was speaking. No—his head was bent forward, a string of rosary beads in his hands—he was praying.
I instantly felt like an intruder; the guy wasn't up to no good—he was petitioning God. I turned to go, and as I did, the wind, which was more forceful at this height, died, and I heard the words he spoke.
"...Pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death."
I recognized it as a Hail Mary, and wondered what he needed forgiveness for. But it was none of my concern, and definitely none of my business, so I edged closer to the stairs, planning to leave the man be. But then he said something that gave a shot to my sixth sense and my hackles.
"Please, oh Lord, forgive me. I didn't mean for this to happen. I was weak. I am weak. Please don't cast me into Hell as I cast that young girl. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is—"
Blood pounded in my ears, drowning out his prayer. It couldn't be a coincidence. I tried to think it through, but instinct took over. One second I was standing stock-still, the next I'd crossed the distance between me and the kneeling man. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him off the ledge.
"What girl?" I said, my jaw clenched tight.
He looked at me, wild-eyed and half-mad, but didn't say anything.
"What girl?" I said again, “did you cast into Hell?"
Something—pleasure?—slithered behind his eyes, and this time he replied, "You know which girl."
My hand clamped down around his throat, and it was all I could do not to crush the small man's windpipe. "What did you do?" I said. "Tell me how to get her back and I won't kill you."
I was pretty sure I was lying.
5
Ember
An alarm ripped through my mind, obliterating my dream.
I groaned at the prospect of yet another drill, but was grateful for the interruption. Dream Taren seemed filled with bitterness and self-pity; he bore almost no resemblance to the real Taren. The Taren I loved. The Taren I’d left behind when I’d—
No. Get up. Do what’s in front of you, Ember.
The Oasis—the one spot in the entire demon dimension that wasn’t awful—looked like a kicked anthill. People scurried this way and that, gathering supplies, going to their designated spots. I was the only one not moving in fast forward. Instead, I rubbed my eyes and did my best to silence the ringing in my brain. However necessary he said they were, I was over Cole’s drills.
“Ember, hurry,” Sadah urged, her son, Grae, in a sling across her chest.
Sadah was Cole’s sister, and though I’d heard her question Cole’s increasing number of drills, she treated each one as if there really were demons streaming into the sheltered valley her ancestors had called home for over two thousand years.
I grabbed my jacket—the inside of the mountain was freezing—tied it around my waist, and shuffled sleepily over to Sadah as she hoisted a bag of grain and helped me strap it to my shoulders. We were “drill partners,” which meant we’d suffered through all of them together. The first time she’d slung the twenty-pound sack across my back, I’d nearly fallen over backwards. Now I barely noticed its weight as I bent over to grab the sack that she would carry. I guessed that’s what two months of drills and training did. I’d thought I’d been tired at the Institute. Learning to be a Daemon in the demon world was on a whole other level.
Two months. The drills were so automatic at this point that I had time to reflect while I went through the motions.
I hated time to reflect.
My thoughts had become the enemy, as dangerous as any demon. The only time that thoughts of Taren weren’t torture was when I slept, but even those weren’t good because he was so angry. Not at me—which made sense—but at himself, as if he’d let me down in some way. As if he could have stopped me—saved me from making what he thought was the biggest mistake of my life. Two months later, and I still wasn’t sure if it had been a mistake or not.
I hadn’t exactly done what I’d set out to do, which was free Cole and his people from this hellish world. And other than being in the best physical shape of my life, I hadn’t learned much.
OK, I was better at shielding my thoughts—Cole had shown me the flaw in Alexander’s technique and shown me a better way—and I could meditate like a yogi, but I could only levitate light objects. Cole and I both knew I could do more, but he wouldn’t let me. Over and over again, I opened to the Chasm, but I was never allowed to actually touch it, let alone use it. Accessing the Chasm was too dangerous, he said, because that much power would act as a beacon and lead the demons right to us. While I had zero desire to make one of his drills the real thing, I also couldn’t help but be frustrated that after all of this time with expert Daemons, I could barely do more than I’d been able to under Master Dogan.
The air got increasingly colder as we marched toward the center of the mountain, and I wished I’d put on my jacket rather than tying it to my waist. We were in a particularly cramped section of tunnel and I couldn’t stop to put it on without holding up the line of people behind me, so I did my best to ignore the chill. It wasn’t long before the cold air seeped into my boots, causing a dull ache in my ankle, reminding me of how I’d injured it.
The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. I’d bitten down hard on my lip to keep from screaming at the pain in my ankle. I’d swallowed, not daring to spit the blood out; Dahraks had an incredible sense of smell and a shark-like ability to find blood.
I had been in this wasteland before—in spirit—but it became immediately clear that being here live, in the flesh, was an altogether different experience. I had expected the biting wind, the smell of rot, the heat of a desert, but this was amplified beyond reason. The smell was overpowering—like a festering wound when the bandage is removed; like death itself had died and left nothing but its stink. The heat seared my skin. The wind felt like a furnace and threatened to blow me away. I writhed upon the cracked earth—my right ankle throbbing—and, for a split-second, I wished it would.
A high-pitched howl pierced the wind, and for a moment the pain disappeared as I looked around wildly, trying to find the source of the noise. I saw nothing but wasteland. I was alone, in the open, unprotected and broken.
The blood-curdling sound rose again, and I scrambled to my feet. Putting weight on my leg was akin to stabbing it with an ice pick, but I couldn’t stay where I was.
With the wind shifting, I couldn’t be sure I was traveling away from the sound and whatever beast was making it. I closed my eyes and took the deepest breath I could tolerate, trying to still myself.
Instead, I retched. It wasn’t the tar-like slime from when I’d been here last time—that had been an illusion. This was all too real, consisting of bile and my last meal.
I chose blindly, limping awkwardly over the parched earth. The fissures in what had once been mud were so deep I wondered at how long it had been since this place had seen rain. The thought of water made me swallow and I realized the extent of my cotton-mouth. Even the bile had dried, coating my tongue.
Debris stung my eyes and clouded my vision. Occasionally I heard a howl, a guttural cry, a moan. I kept moving.
Cole! Cole, I’m here. Where are you?
No matter how many times I reached out to him, there was no response. This was, by far, the dumbest thing I had ever done. I’d been sure I was going to drop in, scoop them up, and leave. But he was nowhere to be found, not even in my head.
I tried to reach Gretchen next. I wanted her to know that I was OK—for now, anyway—and that she had to stay near the Gateway and be ready to open it again. But once again I was met with silence.
Feeling very alone and very vulnerable, my heart began pounding in my chest. and I did my best to pick up my awkward pace. In the distance I spied what looked like a burned shrub—blackened, twisted, gnarled. I lurched toward it. It could barely be considered camouflage, but I clung to hope as someone sliding off a cliff might cling to a tuft of grass.
Distance was impossible to judge and it took longer than I’d thought it would to reach my destination. Once I did, I saw that the shrub hadn’t been burned—the bark was cracked, the familiar tar-like slime oozing from within. An idea blossomed in my mind and I scanned the ground, looking for a twig.
Finding one, I used it to scrape the foul substance from the bush and spread it on my shoes, jeans, and shirt. The odor made me gag, and I began breathing through my mouth, but I used every drop I could find. I had to cover my scent if I was going to survive.
Once again I rolled up my pant leg while I called out for Cole. In both instances there were no surprises. The ankle was swollen, now mottled with green and purple bruising, and there was nothing but silence from Cole.
Why wasn’t he answering? Had I been duped by a demon? Again? I froze at the thought. How long before I had to give up? Before I had to just go back and…
I looked around frantically. Go back where? I scanned the sky, roiling with clouds, for a glimpse of…of what? The Gateway was closed. I shut my eyes, but I couldn’t even sense it anymore.
I scanned the landscape in the direction I’d come. Did that cluster of rocks look familiar? Or was it that cluster over there? I’d been so worried about hiding my tracks that I’d hidden them from myself.
What now, what now?
I had to find somewhere to hide—either until Cole answered or Gretchen did. I squinted in hopes of seeing something—anything—resembling shelter, but there was nothing.
I set out once again, this time on my hands and knees. The wind was shifting wildly again, forcing me to close my eyes against the debris, but what good was vision doing me anyway? At least with the changing winds, both my scent and my tracks would be difficult to follow. I hoped.
I began counting my steps. Every time I put my right hand forward was one. At first, I went in increments of one hundred. After one hundred steps I would stop, open my eyes as best I could and look around in hopes of seeing something on the horizon.
My hands became raw from dragging myself across the hard-packed earth, but so far I hadn’t bled, which was probably the only reason I was still alive. Would black slime be enough to cover the scent of human blood? I thought of the Dahrak demon—made for nothing but hunting and chewing—and I didn’t think so.
Keep it together, Ember, keep it together, became my mantra, playing over and over on a loop.
One hundred steps became seventy-five, which then became fifty. I was light-headed and dizzy, the moisture having been sucked out of me both by the heat and by my repeated vomiting. Once I’d reached the point where I couldn’t even make it ten steps, I stopped altogether, my arms collapsing beneath me, my head hitting the earth. Though wracked with sobs, my cheeks remained dry. There was nothing left in me, not even tears. I no longer had any idea where I was, nor where the Gateway was. There appeared to be no hope of escape, and with Cole’s silence, no hope of rescue. Wasn’t I supposed to be the one who was to do the rescuing anyway? The absurdity of my hubris, my arrogance at thinking I could even enter this world and come out alive, was astounding. Look at me, I thought. I’ve got nothing left to work with.
Cutting through my despair was a small voice—Master Dogan’s to be precise—repeating words he’d said to me one of the many times we’d discussed my jumping inside the Root Demon.
When you have nothing, and you are nothing, you fear nothing.
At the time I’d wondered at his meaning, but now, collapsed in a heap on the cracked earth of a hellish world, my body as broken as my spirit, the words took on meaning. What was there to fear, really? Death? I hadn’t feared death since before I’d attempted suicide. Either there was an afterlife or there wasn’t. I wouldn’t know till I got there. Or didn’t, as the case might be. Pain? Yeah, I feared pain—especially the pain that a group of Dahraks would inflict as they tore me limb from limb. But even that would end. The pain of losing a life that I’d grown to appreciate? That, too, would b
e resolved by the existence or non-existence of an afterlife. Even the pain I’d inflicted on Taren and my mother by coming here would dull with time. They would move on, as humans always did.
And so would I.
I struggled to my knees and ceased my counting. It didn’t matter how far I got. It mattered that I tried. Not because I would succeed in finding safety—once I’d seen my first Dahrak I’d known there was no such thing—but because that was who I was.
Sometime later the wind broke again, and I scanned the basin. I tightened my eyes at...something on the horizon. It shimmered in the reddish light of the wasteland, but a moment later when the wind kicked up I could no longer make it out at all. Was it just an illusion?
Does it matter?
It was all I had. I crawled on, pushing my muscles, my will, past any point I’d even known.
You stop, you die.
It was my new mantra and seemed to work. I might not fear death, but that didn’t mean I didn’t possess a survival instinct.
There came a time—somewhere about the time my muscles had turned from jelly to water—that I could make out the structure even through the clouds of dust. And that was what it was—a structure. It no longer shimmered like heat off of a sizzling highway; it was solid. Real.
I don’t know how long it took to reach the crumbling remains of what must have once been an impressive structure, I only know that finally, I did.
I’d pulled myself inside, and though the wind whistled through, I’d been buffered from the worst of it. I’d looked up at the crumbling stones perched precariously above me and wondered if they were going to fall and crush me. Then I’d passed out.
It had been a full day later—after Cole found me delirious and near death—that I’d learned why he hadn’t come sooner.
He hadn’t seen me jump.
The moment Gretchen had said she was going to lock the gate, he’d given up—on the idea of rescue, on me. He’d shut his mind and begun brooding about how he would tell his people that what he’d promised them—what I’d promised—wasn’t going to happen.
The Gateway Trilogy: Complete Series: (Books 1-3) Page 40
