“Hurry,” he ordered as the first ravager squeezed through the passage.
She then pulled the skull from her pocket and laid it on the star. Then she recited the words she’d memorized that morning.
“Conjure the powers of the dead to open this door. Let he without soul pass and journey through the Underworld.”
There was a sudden whoosh as the door opened, and Elora turned to Mason.
“It’s open. Go.”
“You first,” he said and shot another ravager.
“I can’t go. I have to close the door behind you.”
He opened his mouth to argue but she shoved him back, and he fell through the archway.
“I’ll be here to let you out,” she promised and then kicked the skull from the pentagram. The door swung closed, and he was gone, taking three of their four bolts with him.
She didn’t have time to mourn. Mason had already killed the ravagers they’d passed, but more continued to claw their way through the passage.
She set off charge after charge, yet the stream of them was never ending. They crawled over the dead bodies of their kin, ravenously hungry for human flesh. When the charges were spent, she tossed the bolt to the side and used the aura spear. But it took twice as long, requiring time to draw from the target and then release the aura energy back on it.
She clutched at the putsi bag hanging around her neck and tore it free. She dumped the contents on the ground and ripped a few strands of her hair out, dropping them on top.
“Cau'r dowr selwich ya'ah nontey,” she said, then stretched out her hand. The canyon walls rumbled as she called to them, and the narrow passageway began to close, cutting off their access.
With two ravagers already through the opening, she gripped her knife tightly in her hand and charged forward. Her small size gave her an advantage as the ravagers struggled to locate her. She was able to duck under their searching arms, though razor talons scored her back. She swung her knife, cutting one of the ravagers behind its knee. Twisting on one foot, she stabbed the other in the side.
Neither wound incapacitated the creatures, but the blood gushing from them was all she needed. She danced around them, evading their lunging grasps. As she stepped in the pools of blood, she scraped her foot along, drawing the reaper sigil with her boot. When it was complete, she fell to the ground and drove her knife into the middle of the sigil. Only the finest tip of the knife penetrated the rock, but it was enough.
Both ravagers fell to the ground, withering as a dark cloud formed over their bodies. Their bodies went limp, and the dark clouds dissipated along with their lingering death cries.
Elora rose, her shoulders heaving as she tried to catch her breath. She looked at the archway, but Mason hadn’t reappeared. She scooped up the skull and placed it back in her pocket.
The high-pitched screams of ravagers floated around her filling the canyon with their wrath. Glancing up, she saw the cliff’s rim was lined with dozens of the beasts. She knelt beside the discarded bolt and loaded a new set of charges. She stood and rested it against the archway and picked up the aura spear. At this distance, she had more time between shots, and the spear would be more effective.
Stones tumbled down as the ravagers scrambled along the edge, searching for a path down. Elora raised the spear and found the ravager that looked the most likely to jump. She squeezed the trigger, and a spiral of light hit the ravager and sucked the oozing black aura from it. When she fired it back, it scattered, hitting nearby ravagers. They exploded, and a spray of black rain fell from above her. Realizing the power of the spear, she pointed it at another target, taking out five more.
Their frantic screams intensified, and they went over the cliff’s edge. Many of them fell and died as they hit the ground, but some of them managed to find purchase on the rock face.
She scrambled back, trying to use the spear before they came too close. As they closed in, she grabbed the bolt and said a prayer to the Mother of All.
18
Mason shoved at the solid red rock that blocked his exit, but it was like pushing a mountain. He had no idea if Elora could still see him, and he belatedly wondered how she would know to open the door if she couldn’t see whether he was even there.
He craned his neck from side to side as he considered his options. The best thing he could do to help Elora was to find Niobe as quickly as possible. Mason turned his back to the door and found a set of stairs leading down. With no other option, he walked down the stairs.
Over breakfast, Juki had shared everything he knew about the Underworld. It was filled with hedonistic delights meant to enthrall those who enter, seducing them into staying. That was when the demons came out to play. The deeper the person fell into the fog of delight, the easier it was for the demons to control them. Eventually, the person became the willing victim of the demon’s torture.
He lost track of how long he walked, but each time he looked behind him, the rock covered door was still visible. After a while, he couldn’t tell if it looked further away. Time in the Underworld didn’t exist. Time was meant to mark the moments of life, to signal the beginning and end of events. But down there, there was no end. Or life. So gauging how long he was there would be impossible. He might have been walking for hours or seconds, and it would feel no different.
Around him, the walls darkened to jet-black infused with streaks of a burnt-orange. Heat radiated from them, and he wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. Would this ever end? Where was he even going?
Suddenly, the stairs ended. Mason glanced around a vast empty space, surrounded by darkness.
“Are you lost, traveler?” a husky voice asked from behind him.
He spun and found a tall, gorgeous woman sauntering up to him. Lush, blond hair fell over her shoulder and brushed the tips of the breasts that threatened to spill from her black corset. A matching lace skirt barely covered her ass.
“No,” he answered, entranced by her sultry walk.
“You're new down here. I would have remembered seeing you before.” She stepped closer, brushing those plump breasts against his arm. She smelled of sex and lust.
“I’m looking for someone,” Mason said, though he struggled to remember who. A fog had entered his mind, filtering out everything but the woman. She overwhelmed his senses with her voice, her smell, and the way she slithered against his body.
“You must have been looking for me,” she purred. Her fingers slid up his chest, pushing at the wet material of his shirt so her hands could slip inside.
“I think I was.”
He let her remove the shirt, and she rubbed herself against him, her hands burrowing through his chest hair, down to where it trailed off beneath his pants. She took his hand and tugged him forward, and as they moved, the darkness revealed a large bed with blue satin sheets. They reminded him of something—of someone. He stood still, staring as he tried to remember. Blue curtains. Someone had hung blue curtains somewhere familiar.
“What’s wrong? Don’t you like this body?” Her red lips pouted. “Perhaps a different look would better suit your desires.”
She started to flicker as if she were a projected image of the woman. When she took a solid form again, she had long, curly, black hair, and vibrant green eyes. Mason’s body reacted instantly. This was what he wanted. He pulled her into his arms and crushed his lips against hers.
She didn’t taste like he expected, though he wasn’t sure what he’d expected. He pulled back.
“Who are you?” he asked.
She twisted away from him, laughing, and collapsed backward on the bed.
“What’s your name?”
“Does it matter?” Her arms reached for him. “You can call me anything you want.”
He gazed into her eyes, searching for something but they were blank. Despite the desire that vibrated through her voice, she didn’t feel anything.
Elora.
The fog cleared, and a wave of memories came crashing down on him. Elora looking up at him
with her sparkling green eyes, the sweet taste of her lips, even the blue curtains she’d worked so hard on. He was there to get his soul back. He needed to find Niobe. And Elora was on her own in the middle of ravager territory.
The woman on the bed seemed to realize he was no longer lost in a daze. She sighed and slapped the bed beside her in frustration. Then with a flicker, she rose to stand before him in her original form, this time wearing a sleek gray pantsuit. A black liquid swirled through her eyes, revealing her to be the demon he’d begun to suspect she was.
“I didn’t take you for a fool,” she said, “But these days, one never can tell.”
“Is that what you hoped to play me for? Fool me into thinking you were someone else?”
“You think your witch will be there when you get back to the door?” She gave a sharp laugh.
Mason’s brows pulled low over his eyes. “She’ll be there.”
“Even if she did stick around, there’ll be nothing of her left. The ravagers will tear her apart.” Her lips turned up in a sultry smile. “Come and play with me, it’s much more fun.”
“I’m looking for someone,” he said and brushed her straying hands from his chest.
“They all are,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
“Who’s they?”
“The soulless men come searching for the one who holds their souls.” She licked her upper lip, and the black ink cleared from her eyes, making her almost human again. “I can help ... for a price.”
He grabbed her by the throat and pulled his knife from its sheath. He pressed the razor fine tip to the hollow at the base of her neck.
“Maybe I’ll take your head.”
“You would if you really desired to.” One of her eyebrows arched. “Then again, your knife may scare a human, but it’ll do little on a demon.”
“You're right. If it were a normal knife, but this one ...” Mason lightly caressed her neck. “This one was created with salt from the sea.”
Her smile tightened at the new threat. “A little salt won’t kill me.”
“You might stay standing for the first little nick, and maybe the second, but a deep enough cut will leave you withering in agony for days, which down here would seem like an eternity.”
She pursed her lips. “Who are you looking for?”
“The Ice Witch, Niobe.”
“She’s here.”
“Where?”
“Here,” the demon repeated impatiently. “The Underworld is here, everywhere. There is nowhere else.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Mason demanded, tired of her games.
“Let me go, and I’ll explain.”
He lowered the knife, but when she tried to step away, he gripped her wrist, digging his fingers in. He had no doubt that she would try to escape if given the opportunity.
“It means if you search, that’s what you’ll spend eternity doing because there is no end to the Underworld.” She gestured to the illuminated space around them. “Want a treasure hunt, you’ll have one, but you’ll never find the treasure. Want a treasure? All the jewels in the world will be yours.”
“It can’t be that simple.”
“Sure it is. I want a dog. There it is.”
A black and white husky appeared beside her, licking the back of her hand and sitting at her side.
“I don’t want an illusion,” he snapped. It was the closest he’d felt to anger in six years.
“Illusions are for outsiders. The soulless belong here,” she said and then tipped her head up.
The dog snarled and lunged at him. Mason released the demon, raising his arms to defend himself. But there was no bite as both dog and demon vanished.
He turned in circles, preparing for her attack, but it didn’t come.
Want it and it appeared.
He’d expected it to be harder, yet as he waited for Niobe to appear, he began to wonder if it was. Niobe’s appearance would mean he wanted his soul back, and he honestly wasn’t sure he did. In the three months since he’d joined Elora on this journey, his mission had never changed. Find the Soul Rune and return it to the Dealer. He was sticking to his original order from Luce to get the rune.
If duty hadn’t bound him to her order and to protecting Elora, he might have abandoned the search weeks ago. Yet, there had been moments when he considered keeping it, or even reclaiming it, but duty always won.
Did that mean he was trapped in the Underworld until he truly wished to find Niobe? His calling as a Tank Guard was to protect the people from ravagers. And at that moment, Elora was up there fighting for her life and his. He might not have cared if his soul was returned to him but Elora did, and the only way she would agree to leave was with his soul.
“I didn’t expect it to be you,” Niobe said as she shuffled out from the shadow.
Mason remembered her as old and ugly with a hooked nose, but now she was withered and scarred from the torture she’d endured. Her elk-skin dress and wool shawl hung from her skeletal frame.
“Who did you expect?” he asked.
“The girl.”
He wondered if she deliberately didn’t say Elora’s name or if she’d never bothered to learn it.
“Then you know why I’m here.”
With the use of a long staff, she hobbled forward and reached out for a chair that appeared. She sat and shifted uncomfortably before standing again.
“You want your soul.”
“Where is it?”
Her answering cackle reverberated around them, bouncing off the shadows until it was deafening.
“Enough!” he shouted, and silence descended. “Where is it?”
“The rune is in a safe place. I choose not to reveal its location. Not without a favor.”
“You are bound by the Underworld to bare your darkest secrets, to expose yourself for who and what you really are,” he reminded her. “You will tell me where it is. No favors.”
“You speak with such finality. I may not be able to lie, but that doesn’t mean I have to tell you everything,” she admitted. She leaned against the chair, and Mason heard the grinding of her joints as she adjusted her position. “You could ask me a million questions about its location until you get your answer, or you could do me one little favor.”
Bartering with the Ice Witch hadn’t factored into his plans. The rules of the Underworld had seemed straightforward, yet they were anything but. What other choice did he have?
“What favor?”
“Take me with you.”
“Take you where?”
“Out of the Underworld,” she said as if it were as simple as answering the door.
“A dead soul can’t just leave the Underworld. You have no body on the outside,” he pointed out.
“Ah, how wrong you are. My body has simply returned to the earth, awaiting my arrival.”
“Then why don’t you go on your own?”
“Because as you said, a dead soul can’t leave the Underworld. At least not without a body.”
It finally dawned on him what she meant. “You want me to let you possess me, so you can escape?”
“Not a possession. I have no interest in being permanently stuck in you. I only want to ... latch on, if you will,” she explained. “The magic a witch holds is divided between the body and the soul. Staying in you would be a life with only part of my full magic.”
“How can I trust you?”
“As you pointed out, down here, our lies are exposed. When the door to the Underworld is closed behind us, I’ll reveal the location of the rune, and you’ll release me to the earth, and my body will rise.” The thick lines that ran across her forehead deepened, falling into shadow as the darkness crept in on her. “Your desire to find the rune is fading. Soon you’ll be the one the demons call for when they come out to play.”
She was right. Mason sensed his urgency to help Elora had receded when he thought of freeing Niobe.
“Make your choice, before it’s too late.”
“D
eal,” he said.
Before he had an opportunity to regret his decision, Niobe had thrown off the ragged wool shawl and straightened to her full height.
With her hands in front of her stomach, she molded the magic she conjured as she muttered under her breath. The churning ball of fiery red sparked and hummed with energy. She lifted it high above her head, and it exploded around them, cocooning them in a red dome.
Mason’s back arched as excruciating pain filled his chest. The pressure inside grew as if another being were burrowing inside of him. The agony faded, and he collapsed to his knees, struggling to catch his breath. When he no longer thought he’d pass out from the pain, he looked for Niobe but found only a pile of her clothing.
That presence inside him was Niobe’s soul. His skin crawled at the thought of what she could do—what she could force him to do. But he’d had no choice. This was the fastest way back to Elora.
Niobe forced him to his feet, and he walked into the shadows. Light pulsed around him, and he caught glimpses of the souls and demons hidden there. Finally, he saw a bright light shining on a stairway leading up. On the bottom step sat the demon he’d first met.
“I see you found your Ice Witch.” She rose as he neared, a look of amused disappointment on her face. “Too bad.”
He didn’t say anything and tried to walk around her, but she scooted over, blocking his path.
“There are better things to do down here than trust a witch damned to the Underworld.”
“Like play with a demon?”
She licked her lips. “I could have had so much fun. You would have enjoyed it, too ... for a while.”
“Move.”
“I’m surprised you agreed to take her with you,” she said, then gave a fake look of surprise. “Oh, she didn’t tell you, did she?”
“Tell me what?”
“This is too good.” She laughed.
He gripped his knife, and he couldn’t be sure whether it was his will that went for it or what kept Niobe from pulling the blade.
“Tell me what?” He demanded through gritted teeth.
“The only way her body can hold form on the earth is to spill the blood of another witch.”
Winter Souls: an Adult Paranormal Witch Romance: Sector 10 (The Othala Witch Collection) Page 18
