by Jade Bones
With a snap, the portal closes, plunging us into darkness.
Daerek’s wings beat steadily as we drift lower and lower to wherever this portal dropped us, but apart from the flurry of wind, we fall in silence. My nose tickles, dust swirling around us in clouds, lit only by a dull purple twilight.
Where the fuck is this place?
It smells ancient…
After what seems like forever, my feet hit solid ground and Daerek’s palms slide free from my waist. But he doesn’t move far—only an inch or two backwards. Enough for me to still enjoy the warmth from his body.
I swallow, the shock and adrenaline beginning to fade now that we’re in this place of stillness. Now that the world has dropped away and it’s only us.
The first thing I think as soon as the initial terror disappears is: at least I’m down here with him.
But thinking that is almost worse than the reality of being trapped in some nowhere ancient tomb at all, particularly with him standing so close to me. Because it reminds me how much it hurts that our bond is a lie.
It reminds me how much I wish he cared for real.
Two
Daerek
I know the scent of this place, but its source escapes me. It’s like a long-forgotten memory… something from my childhood, caught on the edge of my awareness but too distant to grasp fully. Or perhaps I’m too distracted by the fact that I really should have thrown Stacey out the window when I had the chance. Hindsight’s a bitch.
Thrown her to safety, I mean. I’m not a goddamn psycho, even if I did let a momentary lapse distract me from my one chance of saving her from this mess.
Distraction… My hands on her waist… the sweet sound of surprise she made when I pulled her close to me. Even now, her heartbeat flutters, thudding so loud I swear another human could hear it. To me, it’s deafening, and I love the thrill of it. The thrill of bringing her to the edge and seeing what she does with all the adrenaline. It makes me want to give that heartbeat a night to match.
But I can’t. Because I’m supposed to bring her joy. Which means stamping down on my desires and hiding them away—burying them along with the parts of me I know she would hate.
She nearly caught me in one of my private training sessions; I must be slipping. If Stacey saw me like that, everything would end. I barely managed to de-summon my swords in time, but sensing my secrecy and not knowing its cause only pissed her off.
By the way, being bonded to a witch who hates your presence? Not the best feeling in the world.
“I need a light,” I say when I’ve assessed all I can within the small circle we’ve landed in.
There are no walls within reach, and my voice echoes wetly. Like the smell, it’s distinct. Familiar. Unease creeps along my spine. If I could only recall what this place means…
“Hang on,” Stacey breathes, her voice only marginally steadier than it was when we landed. A fumbling hand finds mine, and then she’s twisting our fingers together while the pulse of our magic flares. Seconds later, a green-tinged flame chases away the dark.
She doesn’t need to touch me to make a light appear. Her fear radiates from her, giving her away even as she fights to hide how terrified she is. She touches me because she wants to, because she needs the comfort of someone grounding her in the midst of this fresh hell, and I’m all she’s got. Otherwise, I’d be the last person she turns to. And for good reason.
Stacey’s shoulders visibly lower as the light illuminates a small circle around us. She lets go of me and kneels to the floor, studying the ground beneath us like it holds the secrets of our strange prison.
To her, it might. Her work on auras has been admirable to watch, and I wish I could take part in it as something more than an albeit willing power source.
Her work isn’t the only admirable thing to watch. I’ve got a serious thing for redheads, particularly ones that fight the world as much as she does. Sometimes I can even pretend that’s all it is: a thing. Harmless attraction. Nothing deeper, nothing that tugs at my gut and threatens to pull me to the center of the earth—or at least to my knees before her. Nothing that tells me I’d beg for the privilege.
“What do you see?” I ask, kneeling beside her.
A spark of electricity surges upward from the ground into my body, making me shudder. I frown, staring at the silent surface. Just like the space, the touch of power is familiar… but this time it brings a sense of apprehension with it. I wish I could remember where I’ve seen this before.
“Rock,” she snaps, rapping her knuckles against the stone floor hard enough to hurt. “So much fucking rock this may as well be a tomb.”
I choke back a snort of laughter. “Helpful.”
Stacey glares up at me from beneath lashes dusted with white—the clouds of mortar that surrounded us as we fell. “You’re welcome to look for yourself,” she points out. “Maybe you can work out what kind of rock it is—really point us in the right direction. That whole marble versus obsidian kitchen counter debate would be the perfect start to getting us out of here right now.”
My jaw clenches. When she gets like this, it’s all I can do not to shove her against the closest wall and take some of that fire for my own. Even now, heat ignites within my blood, my cock stirring as Stacey challenges me to meet her.
“Earth to Daerek?” Stacey clicks her fingers in my face.
I raise one eyebrow and stand up, Stacey following. “You actually wanted an answer to that? My apologies, love… obsidian is clearly the superior choice.”
Her eyeroll only makes me want her more. Unconsciously, I take a step towards her, my instinctive reaction—as always—being to rile her up even more. To nip at the first sign of a fight and make her really show her teeth.
The stress of our predicament is obviously getting to me. I can usually hold it back much easier than this.
I swallow thickly and stick my hands in my pockets, staying where I am.
“See, I knew there was a reason we’d never work out,” she throws back. “I meant the rest of it. Do you get any sense from the room? I can’t see the aura properly. It’s like it’s muted.”
Her expression crumples, and the quip I’m about to respond with dies on my tongue. I step closer into her light and study the fear on her face. It rebounds as a physical ache in my chest, which is nothing like they prepare you for in demon school.
I’m kidding. There’s no demon school.
It’s a military institution.
We train for years, preparing for our impending witch-demon bond—the one that allows demons to feed on a witch’s energy and thereby supply a never-ending source of the witch’s magic. Think monastery with a torture dungeon.
I’m not a big talker, and I’m sure it’s obvious how well the bookish types do in those places. Ergo—the books disappear, and pushups take their place. If you’re the strong, silent type, you can get away with being ignored most of the time. So long as you’re the strong, silent type. Cue an eighties montage and the scrawniest demon in the bunch turning into one wiry motherfucker. You’re welcome.
Still, after midnight, I used to wander the abandoned library shelves covered in dust. Most of the training was physical—meditation and magical strength exercises. But in my night-time escapades, I discovered what none of my brethren knew: the institution was more military than even we joked about.
Centuries before, we were trained for war, here. Which is why they don’t tell you about the toll the bond takes—demons aren’t meant to care. Witches were our weapons. Who cared if they were drained to a husk in the process, so long as the battle was won? If the witch’s pain hurts the demon, drain faster.
And so the fear on Stacey’s face right now hurts me two-fold. First, because it forces me to recall how the bond was once used. How little that fear would have meant to my brethren centuries ago, and how they would have used any manipulation necessary to twist her heightened emotion into the energy they truly needed.
Second, because it proves how d
oomed our bond is. A witch shouldn’t be afraid when there’s a joy demon around. If I was a fear demon, sure.
Then I could go and jump off a cliff for being the kind of bottom-feeder who relishes someone else’s fear.
“Daerek?”
I realize Stacey has been saying my name for a while now, staring at me with rising apprehension—the sort she normally keeps well-hidden. It sets something alight inside me, and suddenly it doesn’t seem so difficult to tame my thornier side.
“Yes?” I hold my hand beneath the flame she conjured and wait for the tendrils to transfer to my palm. After a second, half of the light belongs to me, and I sweep it in a slow circle as I get a proper look at this place.
No windows. Stone walls that stretch into a dark nothingness, far away from us. A ceiling so distant I can’t see it. It’s like we’re at the bottom of a brick-lined pit, the only light a faint sort of twilight amongst the rocky walls above us. It doesn’t reach to the ground, leaving us in the pitch black of night. The only way forward is down the tunnel. The discoloration of one of the walls suggests there may have been a passage there once, bricked up well after this place was built. I don’t say this out loud.
“Your face…”
Distracted by the raw undercurrent of emotion in Stacey’s voice, I turn away from our predicament and find blue eyes staring up at me with confusion.
“I know it’s a shock, seeing a face so pretty, but you’ll get used to it eventually.”
Stacey ignores my quip, studying me instead. “You know this place,” she finally decides. “I can see it in your expression.”
“Maybe…” I trail off, shifting beneath her scrutiny. “But I can’t remember, it’s—”
“You can.” Her voice, so soft and certain, makes something twist inside me. I remember academy walls. Not Dremen Academy, built for humans with all their soft edges and unionized rights.
Cold stone, dripping with ancient spellwork no one could scrub clean. Distant howls of torture belonging to no demon within the academy walls. At least, no live demon. Glimpses of ghosts flickering into midnight training sessions, their torn clothing a clue to the kind of academy life they once lived.
My fists clench as the memory clicks into place. “This place is hell.”
Her eyes widen, and there’s no need to explain I mean it literally.
Not the hell I lived in; the one the ghosts did. Where demons were trained to fight and witches were disposable tools. An energy source with the same inevitable end as an Energizer battery.
Somehow this portal has dropped us back in time.
Three
Stacey
Oh great—we’re in hell. Why not? I mean we’ve already fallen through a mysterious portal into a tunnel that smells like cat-piss. Why shouldn’t it be hell? In for a penny, in for a pound, and all that.
It’s weird though, I would have thought hell would have more… demons… in it. It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? I glance over my shoulder, like maybe the urine-covered walls are about to spill forth an army of unbound demons in need of a witch.
That idea shouldn’t be so alluring. Minus the piss, of course.
“Seriously what is that smell? You’re telling me hell just smells like cat-piss all the time, and you’re all fine with that? No one’s digging out the antibacterial wipes or anything?”
Daerek chuckles. “That’s not cat-piss; it’s old magic.”
“Wow. There’s a lot to unpack there.”
Daerek rests one hand on my waist and guides me towards the dark end of the tunnel, and I lose all coherent thought from my brain. He’s only being practical—it’s dark down here, and who knows what beasties will leap out at us from the gloom. But a girl can pretend.
Even if she shouldn’t.
“More than you think,” he says darkly. “When I say this is hell… I don’t mean hell as it is now.”
“What else can it be?” I ask, unease sending the hairs on the back of neck straight up. “It’s not like it can be the hell of the future, can it?” Images of futuristic torture devices flood my mind. I mean, they’re probably good enough at it already, but imagine what they could do with another thousand years of technology.
“Try the hell of the past. Couple of centuries past.”
How the fuck does Daerek know what past-hell looks like? “Is this where you tell me you’re actually two hundred years old, and that cute crush you have on me is creepy as hell?”
Daerek levels me with a stare. I talk too much when I’m nervous—sue me. It’s a technique that’s worked wonders for my ability to handle unpleasant situations, like the fact I’ve apparently just been dropped into ancient hell. “I’m not two hundred years old. Twenty-three, just like you, love.”
For some reason, his eyes drop to my mouth. Or at least, I swear they do, it’s hard to tell in the darkness. But the way he swallows, throat bobbing in the shadows, backs up the thought.
“So how do you know what it looked like back then?”
Something must come through in my voice, because he pauses, looking at me with an unreadable expression. I open my mouth to explain, somehow. To tell him that I’m not afraid, he doesn’t need to pretend to care, but nothing comes out.
His hold tightens, drawing me closer, and we continue on towards the shadows.
“Sometimes I would get visions at… demon school.” He grimaces tightly at the last word, like there’s a private joke there I’m missing.
“Sounds helpful.”
“Oh, very,” he says drily. “Nothing quite like them.”
“You don’t get visions anymore?”
He shakes his head, flicking a glance down at me. In the darkness with nothing but my malachite flame, his already green eyes glow like emeralds. “They weren’t my visions.”
Well, that makes no sense, but I’m sick of asking questions. I already feel like I’ve given Daerek too much ground. It’s unsettling to spend so long together in private, with no reason to fake a strong bond. We aren’t friendly, but there’s something less combative about our conversations. I don’t know what it means, so I hate it.
It reminds me of a bear trap, closing over my foot too slow to notice.
“Where do you think—” The words die in my throat as the thin flicker of light illuminates the prize at the end of the tunnel.
It’s a wall.
A giant, bricked up, solid fucking wall.
“So maybe this really is a tomb,” I suggest, not even finding a hint of the humor I would ordinarily equip to deal with this major bummer. “Maybe it’s our tomb.”
“There are easier ways to bury someone alive,” Daerek points out in a low tone that is not reassuring in the slightest. He leans forward to examine the wall, scratching part of the mortar away with his fingernail.
“Sure, there probably are, but do any of them carry the same theatrical value?”
Despite everything, a ghost of a smile appears on Daerek’s lips. It makes my heart stutter unexpectedly, warmth spreading through my chest.
Even without my spell, I know his aura is swelling. I can see it in the ease that passes across his face; he’s feeding on my joy, and for once I don’t mind because the laughter came first, and it wasn’t for show. It was real, secretive, unstoppable.
“So what’s the verdict?” I kick the wall a little with my toe. It’s oddly warm to touch, even through my sneaker.
“Definitely a wall.”
I can’t help the huff of laughter that escapes me. Daerek doesn’t crack jokes often. I glance at him; he has one arm folded across his chest and the other propped on top, his fingers tracing his lip thoughtfully.
I wonder if he realizes he’s basically caressing his mouth. I zone out a little as I watch him slide the tip of his finger along the line of his lips. Oral fixation, much?
“I was hoping it was an illusion,” he confesses abruptly. “But that doesn’t explain the smell. Only someone who’d seen hell as it was would know to mimic that as well, an
d I’m not even sure they could.”
I grimace at the wall, mentally running through all my spells in case one might be able to break through. But even if it could, what then? Presumably, on the other side lies hell.
Are we safer where we are?
Before I can panic too much, something carved into the brickwork catches my attention. I lean closer, running the tip of my finger over the etched drawing. Even though it’s set into an ugly stone wall, it looks like it’s inlaid with gold filigree, which reminds me of Violet’s garbled questioning.
“There’s a key here.”
“Seriously?” Daerek startles, stepping so far into my space his breath grazes my cheek.
“Well, a drawing of a key. Same thing, though, right?”
Daerek stares at me. “Definitely not.”
“But it suggests there is one. That’s more than we had before.”
“It feels like less.”
I stick my hand on top of the drawing, weirdly compelled to touch it like that might help prove my point. “Look, I’m just saying—”
What I’m saying is cut off by a howling wind so loud, I wince in pain, covering my right ear with my free hand. For some reason, I don’t want to take my left hand off the key. It’s like I can hear that dream-voice in my head again, but this time wake sounds like wait. She isn’t saying wake up; she’s just telling me to wait, so I do, as the wind continues to moan.
The only silver lining is it’s the wrong kind of noise to indicate another portal. Although maybe a portal would be handy right now, no matter where it went.
A new voice interrupts the howling. “Stacey? What the hell?”
I blink slowly, my mind trying to put together the familiarity of the voice with the impossibility of our location. “Violet? Seriously?”
