Beyond The Darkness: The Shadow Demons Saga, Book 9

by Sarra Cannon

  My mouth dropped open. “Wait. Sabine created the Hall of Doorways?”

  “Yes. She also created this club as a personal favor to Rend,” Azure said. “He wanted his own door in the Hall, but he didn’t want any of the Order to be able to access it. Apparently, she managed to pull that off.”

  I sat back, laughing. I couldn’t believe it. I’d just met the actual person who had created the Hall of Doorways. It was such an extensive network, I’d wondered how a witch had created something like that. I always assumed a group of powerful witches had done it. I’d never suspected a fairy, of all people.

  “Anyway, what was it you were saying before Sabine interrupted us?” she asked. “You said there were eight girls you needed potions for?”

  “Eighty,” I corrected, and Azure whistled. “I had my memories taken from me years ago when I first moved to Peachville and someone helped me restore them with this potion called the Elixir of Kendria. I was hoping—”

  “That elixir won’t help those girls,” Rend said suddenly, sitting up on the other side of the room. He squinted in the light and held his hand to the side of his head. “Azure, did you really have to poison me again? I told you to stop doing that.”

  She shrugged, a smile playing at her lips. “You were being bad,” she said. “You nearly killed this poor girl. If you can’t handle yourself around her now, I’ll gladly poison you again, so please, behave.”

  “Sorry for that,” he said, standing and walking over to the table. He inhaled and his eyes flashed red for an instant before he regained control. “What are you? I thought I had most of my urges under control, but your scent caught me by surprise.”

  “Half-Prima, half-demon-king,” Azure said, answering for me. “I think you get a pass on this one. Even I kind of want to see what her blood tastes like.”

  “Thank you for not killing me,” I said, trying to ignore Azure’s last comment. “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you, Rend.”

  He studied me for a moment. “How do you know me?”

  “Azure said you might need to make a potion to counteract whatever she put on that blade,” I said. “Get whatever you need to help you feel better. I have a story to tell you, and then I need your help. A lot of lives depend on it. Lives of people we both care very deeply about.”

  He and Azure shared a look. Azure nodded.

  “I think she’s telling the truth, Rend. Even Sabine said we should trust her,” she said. “What do you need to recover faster?”

  “Sabine? She was here?”

  “She said she finished with the doors,” Azure said. “But let’s concentrate on this potion.”

  “It depends on what you laced that dagger with,” he said. “Arsenic?”

  “Among other things,” she said. “To be honest, it didn’t keep you down nearly as long as I thought it would. If we go down to the lab, I can walk you through the ingredients of the poison so you can make an antidote.”

  Rend rubbed at the place where he’d been stabbed as if it was nothing more to him than a bee sting. He pulled his shirt over his head to study it, and I couldn’t help but notice the way Azure’s cheeks went pink at the sight of his muscular chest.

  I’d always suspected she had a thing for him, but with Franki in his life, it was hard to tell for sure. Poor Azure. From the way she was looking at him, she was obviously in love with him, and I knew from watching Lea what unrequited love could do to a person over time.

  It explained why she almost never smiled.

  “No offense, but I can’t trust you in my lab and my home,” Rend said to me. “But I don’t know that I can leave you here by yourself, either.”

  “She’s already been to your house,” Azure said.

  He eyed me, and I nodded.

  “Huge mansion in the Alps,” I said. “Gigantic stone fireplace. Elevator that leads down to your lab deep inside the mountain. I’ve seen it.”

  He shook his head. “Impossible,” he said. “Very few people have ever been to my house. I definitely would have remembered bringing you there.”

  “If you need proof that I’ve been there before, I can lead you straight to the right door,” I said. “I’ve been there many times.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Rend said, almost breathless as he stared at me. It was obvious I was freaking him out just a little bit. “I have no idea how you know about that door or Venom or any of this, but if Azure says she trusts you, then I trust you. Come on. I’ve got a headache you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.”

  I stood and walked over to the entrance to the Hall of Doorways. I looked back, and Rend motioned for me to lead the way.

  I walked down the hallway and stopped at the door clearly marked with a cobra ready to strike. I stepped aside for Rend to open the door. He was obviously surprised and confused, but he was also intrigued.

  He opened the door, and I walked past him, stepping into the waiting elevator. He shook his head, but rather than doubt me any further, he stepped inside the elevator and pressed the button that would take us down to his laboratory deep inside the mountain.

  A Matching Key

  Lea

  I kept my eyes on Kael every chance I got. He was the key to all of this, but I just needed to know how. And why. What was he hiding?

  After the breakfast feast, a guard came up to him and whispered something in his ear that made him frown. Trouble in paradise, perhaps?

  When he came back over to where I stood with my mother, he took her hand and kissed it gently. “My queen, I hope you’ll forgive me, but there is something I need to attend to before the afternoon’s events,” he said. He bowed to me as well, but thankfully he didn’t try to take my hand. “We’ll postpone our walk in the gardens for another time, Princess.”

  “I can hardly wait,” I said, sarcasm dripping from my tone.

  He narrowed his eyes at me, and my mother’s hand fluttered absently to the gold chain around her neck.

  “I’m so happy the two of you seem to be getting along so well,” she said.

  If only she knew.

  Kael made his exit, and I waited only a moment before excusing myself, as well.

  “Don’t go, sweetheart,” Mother said. “I’m so enjoying your company.”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t been feeling well this morning,” I said, rubbing my sore wrists. “I’m going to lie down for a while, but I’ll see you this evening.”

  I placed a kiss on her cheek, and turned to leave the room, not giving her another chance to protest. Since Kael had escorted me to the dining hall, there were no other handmaidens or guards to keep an eye on me. I took this rare opportunity and raced through the halls, searching for any sign of where he had run off to.

  There was no doubt in my mind he was up to something, and I wanted to know what it was.

  Finally, as I turned a corner in the east wing, I caught sight of him just as he opened the door leading down to the dungeons.

  Interesting. Was he going to visit a prisoner?

  Carefully, I followed him down, shifting to shadows and keeping to the dark places. Down here, there were plenty of corners to hide in.

  To my surprise, though, he didn’t stop at the first or second level of the dungeons. Instead, he continued down to the third and final dungeon. We were truly in the belly of the castle now, farther down than most people ever dared to go besides the guards who were stationed here on patrol.

  He walked to the far end of a deserted cell block and went inside the final, open cell. There was no one down here at all, so why had he come?

  My heart raced as I watched him enter the final cell and glance around. I slunk into a particularly dark spot against the wall in the cell opposite him, and I waited to see what he would do.

  He removed something from his coat pocket and out of nowhere, a strangely shaped door with odd carvings appeared in the wall. Light seeped out from all around the edges of the doorway.

  He slid a key into the center of the door, and a loud cl
icking sound echoed through the dungeon.

  Kael pushed the door open, glanced around one last time, and then stepped inside.

  As soon as he was gone from sight, I reformed and ran to the door. Carefully, I pushed, but it wouldn’t budge. There was no following him now without a matching key.

  But when my eyes settled on the lock embedded in the center of that strange door, I gasped and pulled my hand back as chills broke out along my skin.

  The keyhole was surrounded entirely by a row of tiny, sparkling diamonds.

  One thought flashed through my mind before I shifted and flew back up to my room.

  Somehow, I had to figure out what the hell those guards had done with my bag, because inside, I had a key that just might open that secret door.

  The Way It’s Meant To Happen

  Harper

  Rend’s lab looked almost exactly as I remembered it, which was strangely comforting. I’d been surrounded by so many unfamiliar things, it was nice to be in a place that reminded me of home.

  As he worked to create the antidote to the poison concoction Azure had put on her dagger, I told them both the story of the emerald priestess and of the people who were waiting on me back home.

  “You’re telling me that in the future, you’ve managed to not only kill two priestesses of the Order, but you’ve also set all of the demons from the sapphire gates free?” he asked.

  “Every last one of them,” I said. “And we won’t stop until every demon and witch is free. But right now, the people who are fighting that war are in danger.”

  He stared forward for a long moment, as if letting that news sink in.

  “If that’s true,” he said, “why not surprise them now? If you know how to get to them and how to kill them, we could put together a small group and kill those priestesses right now. They would never know what hit them. Just think how many demons we could save.”

  I shook my head. “We can’t do that, Rend,” I said. “Messing with the past in such a huge way could have catastrophic consequences. And besides, if we killed the sapphire priestess now and let all of those demons go, I would most likely never be born. And if I was never born, I wouldn’t be here right now. Who knows what would happen to the world if we messed with the timeline in that way?”

  Rend slammed a hand against the table and stood.

  “I understand what you’re saying, but dammit, it makes me feel so helpless,” he said. “With the knowledge you have, we could change everything.”

  “Which is exactly why we can’t do it,” I said. “Please, you have to understand. There are so many things I wish I could change. In the future, my own mother and father are both dead. You think I wouldn’t do everything in my power to bring them back? But any changes made to this timeline could keep us from winning this war. We have to trust that everything is happening the way it’s meant to happen.”

  “Then why risk coming here in the first place?” he asked, stepping toward me. “You’re changing the timeline right now by telling me all of this.”

  “Am I?” I asked, my stomach rolling as my nerves got the best of me. Rend was kind of terrifying in the fifties. “Or was I always meant to be here? I haven’t done anything yet that’s changed the timeline as far as we know.”

  Rend took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair.

  “Okay, so tell me what you need me to do,” he said.

  My shoulders relaxed slightly. I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying so much tension, but the lives of most of the people I loved depended on Rend helping, and now that I knew he was at least willing to listen to me, I had hope that it was going to be okay.

  “In the future, the emerald priestess left a trap for Jackson,” I said. “It’s very possible you’re a part of the group that will activate that trap and be captured.”

  “What’s the trap?” Azure asked.

  I explained what the ruby priestess had told me about the emerald ritual items.

  “The moment Jackson uses those items to free a gate, he’s going to trigger a portal,” I said. “At that point, an army of witches will come through to capture or kill anyone who is there with him, which may very well include both of you.”

  “But what can we do from here?” Rend asked. “That’s decades in the future.”

  “Yes, but when the time comes, you’ll be there,” I said. “You’re both still alive and close to Jackson. I need you to warn him not to use those ritual items.”

  Rend shook his head. “This is a lot of information, and while I’m glad to know these things are possible in the future, I’m not sure I can keep this to myself,” he said. “Some day in the future, I’m going to meet you. I’m going to meet Jackson. Why not just warn you about the kidnapping when I first meet you? We could save you from the torture you’ve endured at the priestess’s hands.”

  “No,” I said, my voice trembling. It was such a tempting thought, but I couldn’t change things too much. “If you do that, it could alter the other events and we might never get close enough to the emerald priestess to kill her. I can’t risk that, no matter what danger we’re all in right now.”

  “I can understand that, but what else do you propose?” he asked.

  “I have an idea,” I said.

  They both looked at me and listened as I explained the plan that I hoped would save the people I loved most in this world from certain death.

  I’m Not Giving Up

  Harper

  “And you think this will work?” I asked, eyeing the stack of small bottles Rend was loading into a large leather bag.

  It had taken him almost an entire day to create potions for all of the girls we saved from the asylum.

  “It’s the best memory potion I know how to create,” he said. “Much stronger than the Elixir of Kendria. This has worked on some people who had severe memory loss after the types of torture you’ve described to me, but I’ve had other instances where it didn’t work. It depends on just how deep the priestess’s tactics were and how much she used them on each girl.”

  “And there’s nothing we can do for the girls who were lobotomized?” I asked.

  He ran a hand through his thick dark hair and sighed. “I’ve included some strong healing potions for those girls,” he said. “It might help to heal the damage that was done to their brains, but I can’t promise it will cure them. Give them the healing potion, and if there seems to be some improvement, give them the memory potion. All we can do is hope for the best.”

  “How do you plan to get them home?” Azure asked.

  “I honestly don’t know,” I said, fear tightening my chest. I was taking this one step at a time. “I’m hoping we can find the portal before it closes and get everyone through. But even if we locate it, I have no idea what we’ll find once we go through. There could be an army of witches there waiting for us.”

  “And if you can’t find it?” she asked. “Or if it’s closed by the time you do?”

  I smiled, holding back tears. “Then we find another way. I’m not giving up, no matter how long it takes.”

  Azure pulled me into a hug, and it surprised me so much I nearly lost my balance. Azure was so not the hugging type.

  “I’ve never met someone so brave,” she said. “If there’s one thing I want Venom to become, it’s a safe place for witches who have no other home to go to. I want this place to become a home for them where they know they’re safe from the Order.”

  “It will be, Azure,” I said. “It will be, because you want it to be.”

  “If you do find that portal and there’s an army of witches defending it, I’ll gladly come to help you fight,” Rend said. He handed the leather bag to me.

  It was so much lighter than I expected it to be, and I smiled, wondering if he’d gotten these bags from the Shadow World. From someone in Essex’s family line who knew how to make bags like this.

  “I could bring an army to you,” he said. “We could help you defeat them. I have a personal stake in the fight against
the Order, just as much as you do.”

  I grabbed his hand.

  “I know you lost your sister to the Order,” I said. “I know that’s why you’re here in the human world, and I wish more than anything I could have done something to save her. But there’s nothing more you can do to help me in this fight. I need you to be alive. You have a major role to play in the fight that’s yet to come. Both of you.”

  “But—”

  “No, listen to me,” I said. “I’ve taken a great risk coming to you now. If you tell anyone the things I’ve told you or if you do anything to fight back knowing what you now know, it could risk everything we’ve worked so hard to accomplish.”

  He nodded, but he still looked determined to fight.

  “You have to promise me you’ll take those potions as soon as I’m on my way,” I said, nodding to the two small vials left on the alchemy table. “I know it’s hard when you feel like you could do something now, but you have to trust me. One wrong move and everything could change. I need you to be there to warn Jackson. Please.”

  Rend sighed and picked up one of the small vials. Inside was a potion that would cause both he and Azure to forget everything about this exchange until some moment in the future when Jackson decided to use the emerald ritual items to free one of the emerald gates. Since we didn’t know the exact moment it would happen, it wasn’t an exact science.

  We just had to pray the trigger would work, and he would remember in time to save them.

  “You’re asking a lot of me, Harper,” he said. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to put an end to the Order of Shadows. Now that we know there’s a way to kill them, all I want to do is hunt them down and rip their hearts from their chest. Do you know how many demons will die between now and then, while we wait? Thousands, Harper. Innocent demons, like my sister.”