by Steve Feasey
‘It won’t work!’ the Grell said defiantly. ‘You don’t have what it takes to torture me. You’ve gone soft, Charron. Living with the humans has made you soft and weak. You’ll never make me tell you anything.’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Lucien said, returning the handkerchief to his pocket. He turned towards the door, adding over his shoulder, ‘Maybe I have lost some of the cruelty that my kind is famous for. That’s why I brought my friend along.’ He opened the door and looked up into the face of the battle-angel. Moriel gazed over the vampire’s head at the nether-creature in the centre of the room and smiled.
‘I told you you were wasting your time,’ she said, moving past the vampire. ‘My turn now.’
One look at the Arel was enough to set the Grell shouting out to Lucien. There was desperation in its voice as it pleaded with him not to leave it alone with the battle-angel.
‘Please, Lucien. I didn’t mean what I said. I think I can remember something now. Yes, I’m sure I can tell you something. PLEASE! Give me a chance. Don’t leave me in here with her.’
‘Too late,’ the battle-angel said, slamming the door.
Lucien glanced at his watch as the Arel stepped out of the cellar, closing the heavy door behind her. No more than six minutes had passed.
‘That was quick,’ he said, glancing back in the direction of the door.
Moriel shrugged and continued to wipe her hands on a piece of old cloth she’d found somewhere.
‘Did the Grell tell you anything?’
‘It told me everything. Everything it knew, anyway – which wasn’t much.’ She threw the rag down and started to walk towards the steps that led up from the basement. ‘Caliban enlisted the help of a demon – aPit-Shedim – after the creature claimed not only that it knew where the crypt containing Helde’s heart was, but that it had uncovered the secret to bringing her back to life.’
‘And where is this Pit-Shedim now?’
‘It seems to have disappeared,’ Moriel said, giving Lucien a look. ‘It went off with Caliban, presumably to take him to the crypt, and hasn’t been seen since. Neither has your brother. They’ve both disappeared.’
‘Caliban would not want anyone to know his plans. He’s aware that there would be opposition to any attempt to bring Helde back to this realm.’ Lucien paused, ‘I’m surprised the Grell was allowed to live, knowing such a thing.’
‘Caliban did not know that the djinn had overheard his conversation with the Pit-Shedim. He has kept his plans secret.’
‘Hag knew,’ Lucien pointed out.
Moriel smiled. They were leaving the building now and the earth was bathed in the sickly red light cast by the dull globe overhead. ‘Hag knows everything,’ she said, pulling the vampire to her and leaping into the air, her huge black wings unfurling as they soared into the night sky. ‘That’s why we’re going to go and see her now: to reveal to her what we have just found out and ask her if she has any idea where Helde’s crypt is. I only hope we are not too late.’
16
Alexa’s nose was the first thing to tell her that there might be an opening somewhere up ahead. The tiniest breeze of fresh, clean air had entered the tunnel and she paused for a moment, not daring to let herself hope she might be close to escaping this hell. She guessed that she’d crawled and slid on her belly through the pitch-black tunnel for almost an hour now – not that she’d gone far in that time; the narrowness of the shaft made any kind of progress extremely difficult. She was exhausted. For a while after the outside door had closed and trapped her she’d invoked a glowing ball of light, holding it in the palm of her hand as she fought to control the panic of her claustrophobia. It was simple magic, but it stopped her making her way forward, and she’d eventually foregone the light as she remembered the Ashnon’s warning about being in the shaft when it was next filled. So she’d inched forward in complete darkness, eventually closing her eyes – finding it somehow easier to concentrate like that.
But she opened them now, and her heart jumped in her chest as she made out the square outline of light up ahead. It had to be some kind of door or hatch, and the sight of it spurred her forward. Her way had become harder as the tunnel became steeper and steeper, and Alexa had been forced to jam her back against the roof of the passageway, wedging herself to ensure that her hard-fought progress was not lost by slipping backwards. The tunnel’s incline was already becoming difficult to contend with, but the pitch that it increased to in the last section up to the door would be impossible to climb.
Alexa’s heart sank. She let her head fall forward, not caring that her hair was now lying in the crud and filth that lined the tunnel, and gave in to the tears. She would die in this place. She would be thrown back down its length when the next wave of rubbish filled the chute, and she would drown in that muck; it would fill her nose and mouth and lungs, and she would suffocate in it, only to be added to the great pile of rotting filth outside when the doors finally opened again.
There was a scraping sound above her head. She stifled her sobs and listened closely, and heard it again. She gasped, screwing her eyes up in pain as light flooded the darkness. They were about to fill the chute! She opened her mouth to scream – knowing it would be the last sound she would make before succumbing to the fate she had just imagined – when something soft landed against her head. She squinted through the slits that she’d made of her eyes to try to make out what the thing was.
A knotted rope hung down the tunnel, the other end disappearing into the brilliant square of light overhead.
Then she remembered what the Ashnon had said to her from the other side of the tunnel seal: how it would somehow make its way inside and find her.
She reached out and gratefully took hold of the rope. Using every last bit of her strength, she stretched to grasp one knot and then another, pulling herself up through the last section of tunnel and over the lip of the open hatch. She fell face down on the floor in a heap.
‘Thank goodness you came,’ she said in a small voice.
She looked up to see three Maug guards grinning down at her. It was the last thing she saw before one of them swung its fist into the side of her head and plunged her into a new kind of darkness.
17
Trey reluctantly followed Dreck into the Fae gate, passing from the sickly red light of the Netherworld into the blackest of blacks, and into a place that was as different from the demon realm as it was from the human one. It was icy cold, and he was sure that if he could make anything out he would see his breath billowing out in front of him. He had the odd sensation of floating, as if there was nothing of any substance in this place; space with no stars or moons or planets – nothing but dark matter.
‘Whatever you do, don’t let go of my hand,’ Dreck said. His voice seemed very far away, as if they were separated by much more than the arm’s length between them.
There was nothing to suggest which direction they should head in to get through to the other side. There was nothing to suggest that there was another side. Just blackness.
And then they came.
They were, like everything in this place, invisible, but Trey sensed them all around. The silent menace being directed at him and the Fire Imp was almost tangible, a threatening force of hatred and malevolence that made the hairs on the back of the teenager’s neck stand up, and caused him to look around in alarm, expecting an attack from any direction.
Dreck spoke; again his voice had that strange, far-off quality to it, and Trey was vaguely aware of being pulled along by the Fire Imp. ‘Don’t worry about them. They can’t get to us.’
As he said this, the Fae revealed themselves to the trespassers.
There were hundreds of them. Each tiny figure was illuminated by some kind of bioluminescence – a small glowing light that came from a central point inside their body – and Trey was reminded of a wildlife programme he’d once watched about deep-sea fish that used the same method to lure and kill their prey. He stopped and stared at the creatures
which were slowly becoming more apparent, and saw how they shared another characteristic with those denizens of the deep: their bodies and skeletons were transparent, the glow at the centre illuminating the internal organs, visible through glass-like skin. In other ways the Fae looked similar to the fairies he’d read about in books as a small child: tiny wings, which seemed to sprout from their shoulder blades, moved so quickly that they appeared as nothing more than a blur behind their backs, enabling the creatures to dart to and fro in the air, hovering for a moment or two in one spot before switching to a new one. Tiny arms and legs hung from humanoid bodies, but what Trey had first taken to be a tail turned out to be two long, flowing tentacles that waved in the air beneath them, each tipped with its own light which glowed in the same way as the central one.
Trey’s eyes were inevitably drawn to the faces of the Fae, and here any similarities to the dainty, pretty fairies in the illustrated tales of his childhood ended. Their heads seemed too big for their bodies, with large, elongated eyes that glared out at the teenager, the pupils shrunk down to tiny black pinpricks as if even the tiny amount of light emitted by their own bodies was too much for them. But it was their mouths that Trey could not take his eyes away from: ghastly wide splits stretching from one side of the face to the other, lips peeled back over rows of deadly-looking teeth, which were also transparent, as if fashioned out of glass or ice.
One of the host broke free from the rest of the group, flying in a high arc above Trey’s head, the lighted tentacles trailing behind it and tracing a path of light in its wake. Others followed suit, matching the steep ascent and sweeping in behind the first Fae in an aerial display that was beautiful to watch. The leading Fae halted in the air, hovering some two or three metres directly over the teenager. Then suddenly it dive-bombed. The others followed suit, and Trey looked up to see a wave of living tracer bullets hurtling towards him. Worse still, he could hear a distinct snick-snick-snick sound as they repeatedly snapped their mouths open and shut.
Piranhas, was all Trey could think, imagining the deadly swarms of fish that lived in the rivers of South America and dealt out death to anything foolish enough to stray into their territory.
Trey let his legs fold beneath him so that he dropped to the floor, the unexpected reaction causing Dreck to cry out in alarm and almost lose his grip on the boy’s hand.
But it was not the teenager that the Fae attacked; the swarm headed straight for the Fire Imp, hurling screams and curses at the djinn as they hurtled through the air at him. As their illuminated bodies closed in on their target, lighting him up, Trey could see that Dreck was completely calm. He even had a small smile on his face. And as the first Fae reached him, Trey saw why: instead of sinking its teeth into the Fire Imp’s flesh, the little creature careered off into the darkness, as if it had struck some invisible barrier surrounding its intended victim. The same fate befell the rest of the Fae in the attack force, the air filling with their frustrated screams as they were thwarted in their attempts to get at the nether-creature and sink those terrible-looking teeth into him.
Trey could not understand why none of the creatures had attacked him. He got back to his feet and looked over at the main body of Fae – those that had not participated in the attack, hovering above, watching. Trey heard some of them hissing with anger, others – those in the front of the throng – looking on impassively, as if they had known from the start that the attack was futile.
At some silent signal, the onslaught was called to an end. The attack force rejoined the main group, and the Fae began to disappear from view – their lights going out one by one until there was just one left, its internal glow brighter and of a different hue from the rest. This was the Fae that had been at the forefront of the observing group, and Trey guessed that it must be the leader.
It flew towards the teenager, hovering in the space just in front of the boy’s face, and it seemed to be studying him. Dreck shouted something out at the creature, leaping up and swatting at it with the hand not holding on to Trey’s, but the Fae was too fast and agile. It easily avoided the clumsy attack, returning to its hovering position in front of Trey. When it had studied the human for a moment or two, it looked to the right, in the Fire Imp’s direction, and scowled and spat into the darkness that cloaked the djinn. Then it took one last hard look at Trey before slowly extinguishing its light and fading from sight.
There was a perfect stillness then. Trey somehow knew that the Fae were still out there, watching them, and he was glad when Dreck tugged at his hand and said that they should get out of this place.
They walked on, the Fire Imp somehow knowing the way to go, until eventually Trey felt the temperature increase by a fraction; a hint of warmth on his face. Dreck stopped, and Trey almost walked into the back of him. He felt the Fire Imp take a long and deliberate step forward, and knew that Dreck had crossed a threshold and exited this place. He felt a pull on his hand, and was about to follow the djinn through to the other side, when a Fae lit itself up before him. The creature flew towards him until it was no more than a few centimetres away from his face.
Trey felt the Fire Imp tug again, this time more vigorously. He could just make out the muffled sound of the demon shouting for him to follow.
The Fae’s bioluminescence suddenly glowed bright green, and Trey looked into the wondrous and fascinating light.
‘Beware, lycanthrope,’ the Fae said in a menacing voice. It blinked and the darkness around them was transformed so that Trey found himself standing in a huge room between two nether-creatures. It was clear that they could not see him – they looked straight through him at each other. They were in conversation, one huge demon, sitting on the throne, giving its orders to the other, who bowed and scraped in supplication throughout the exchange.
He was aware that the Fae was showing him this scene, projecting it directly into his mind by a magic similar to his own thought-transfer spell.
The scene changed and this time he witnessed an Incubus demon looking into a hotel building in which a young girl stood, her back to the window. The Incubus transformed into the figure of a man and stepped forward, raising its hand to rap against the pane of glass. The girl turned round and, recognizing the man, started to run towards him. She was pursued by members of staff, but they were too slow to catch her and she fell out on to the street, skinning her knees on the pavement. As she did so, the hotel and street disappeared, replaced by the Netherworld, and a huge winged demon swooped down from the sky, took the girl in its claws and carried her off.
The scene changed again. Alexa was in a cell. She was covered in cuts and bruises. Her hair was matted and stuck to her head, and there was grime and filth all over her clothes and skin. Her chin was resting on her knees, and though she was looking forward defiantly now, it was clear from the streaks running through the dirt on her cheeks that she had been crying.
The scene faded and Trey was left alone in the darkness. He felt a knot of anger in his belly, and his eyes welled with tears. The visions had taken only an instant, but the revelations and the messages that had been transmitted with them were comprehensive in warning him of the dangers ahead.
He felt a wrench on his hand, this time so hard that it almost pulled him off his feet.
The Fae appeared again, hovering just in front of him, and showed him one last scene. This one was about the Fae themselves: how they had ended up here, tricked by a duplicitous nether-creature which had deceived and entrapped them, taking them away from their own realm and imprisoning them in this one.
‘Thank you,’ Trey said, with a nod in the creature’s direction.
The Fae looked back over its shoulder as if it had been called by something. It turned as if to leave, only to pause again, looking at the human and whispering five words to him. ‘Get the Fire Imp’s ring,’ it said, and disappeared.
Trey stepped through the doorway separating the two worlds to rejoin the creature he now knew to be a traitor.
18
Drec
k’s knowledge of the keep’s layout was faultless. He knew the exact route that he and Trey needed to take to avoid the guards, sometimes taking them down what appeared to be a dead end, only for him to reveal a secret doorway hidden behind a rotting tapestry or cleverly disguised to be indistinguishable from the masonry surrounding it. With the Fire Imp leading, they made rapid progress through the citadel. So much so that when Dreck stepped out into a small courtyard without so much as a glance up at windows that looked down into it, Trey hurried to catch up with him and asked if they shouldn’t proceed with more caution.
Dreck waved the question away and kept moving. ‘Do you want to get to the dungeons and free Alexa and the other girl?’ said impatiently.
Trey spotted the slip and had to bite his lip not to respond. Instead, he fell in behind the demon, stepping through the doorway on the other side of the open space.
‘Good,’ Dreck continued, taking the boy’s silence as a sign of his acquiescence. ‘Then I suggest you leave the method of our progress through this place to me, and keep moving as quickly as possible.’
Trey had no other option. He was hopelessly lost. When they’d started their journey through the complex maze of interconnecting passageways he’d kept looking around, trying to remember features along the way in case he should have to try to find his own way out. But he soon realized that he hadn’t a chance of retracing their steps. Most of the narrow stone corridors they had taken had looked identical, with few features to mark them apart. No, he just had to follow, relying on the demon’s knowledge of the place and its workings – even if he could no longer trust the creature in any other way.
When they finally came to a halt, it was at the T-junction of an arterial passage that led on to a much wider corridor. Dreck stopped, holding a short arm out to indicate that the teenager should do the same.
‘This is the main corridor,’ he said in a low voice. ‘It leads up to the Great Hall. There is a guard station to our right, and there’s no way past it but along this corridor.’ He placed his face close to the wall at the apex of the corner, carefully peering round the bend, then quickly pulled his head back and looked up at Trey. ‘Only two guards – they must be between shifts.’
