by Black, Tasha
“I know.” Cressida winked. “I’m full of surprises.”
Grace turned away politely as she pulled on her clothes. How many freaking times was she going to see her naked before it wasn’t a thing? But Cressida already knew the answer - it would always be a thing. Grace might be a kick ass witch and horny as hell, but at the end of the day, she was a prim sort of person.
“Ready,” Cressida said when she was dressed again.
“Great,” Grace said, slipping out her Maglite and illuminating the hall.
It was made of smooth stones that were cold and wet enough you didn’t want to touch them. Cressida shuddered thinking how her snake would have felt if she’d had to stay here for long.
They went on for what felt like miles and finally reached a room that reminded her immediately of the portal chamber in Tarker’s Hollow. The one where they all almost died.
Grace trained her flashlight on the floor.
The same circular inscription.
Before they could react, there was the sound of a door slamming shut in the corridor.
Everything went black as Grace’s flashlight winked out.
Cressida held her breath as the room went even colder around them. Her skin lifted in goosebumps. She called to every sense she had, but there was no scent but her friends, no taste in the air except the sinister moisture.
Something brushed past her.
She swallowed back a scream as her skin crawled in revulsion.
They had walked into a trap.
The moroi was in the room with them.
Chapter 4
Ainsley followed Erik into the cave.
It was damp and smelled like fear, but she was grateful to be there after climbing the steep hill. There had been plenty of rocks jutting out for footholds, but with her belly sticking out in front of her, she’d had to move very carefully.
Behind her, Ennis, still in wolf form, panted lightly.
She’d been impressed by his fighting. He presented himself in such a kindly and casual way. It was easy to forget that he was a member of the Federations high council.
And so was she.
She pushed the thought aside - no time for that kind of distraction.
The cave narrowed slightly as they moved in. Ainsley felt beads of sweat forming on her forehead as it became just large enough for her to crouch and uncomfortably shuffle through.
She rested a hand on her stomach, sending calming thoughts to the child within.
As soon as this is over, we are going to set a new record for the world’s longest bubble bath, I promise. And we’ll eat a cheesesteak. Or two.
Just when she began to worry that they literally might not fit through the next part, the tunnel opened up.
Oddly, there was light at the end of it.
According to Ainsley’s inner navigator, they should still be underground for some time. She had to be way off.
This was exactly why she had always relied on her phone’s GPS.
Erik stepped out into the light and stood, holding out a hand to help her.
She took his hand gratefully, and stepped out, making room for Ennis’s wolf to leap to the ground.
Erik drew in a quick breath and his hand tightened around hers.
Ainsley’s eyes began to adjust to the light and she looked around.
Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw.
It looked like they had come out exactly where they’d gone in.
The same clearing sat at the bottom of the steep hill, surrounded by the same woods.
Only, it wasn’t the same.
The light had a different quality. The colors seemed to be washed out, like in an old photograph. Sepia-toned trees met the yellowy moss on the ground under a brownish sky.
“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” Erik joked weakly. Even his voice had an odd quality to it. Like he was far away, even though he was still holding her hand.
She looked down and her own hand was a strange mustard color.
Her stomach clenched and a wave of nausea coursed through her.
“Come on,” she said, determined not to chicken out now.
They headed carefully down the hill to the clearing below.
Something was wrong with the trees. As they approached, Ainsley saw that they were covered in a thin, gauzy substance like gray cotton candy.
Webs.
This was where the spiders had come from.
But it wasn’t just the silk-wrapped branches of the trees that were strange. Their trunks were thicker in places, swollen with lumpy outgrowths that were also wrapped in webbing.
As she got closer, she realized that the lumps were actually things attached to the tree trunks, held fast to them by the webs.
Curiosity and dread got the best of her and she moved faster.
When she reached the first tree she finally saw the outline of what was beneath the filaments. A human shape huddled against the trunk.
Horrified, she moved to the next tree. Another person was strung to the tree, his face barely visible.
Owen.
This was where the missing people had wound up.
She scanned the clearing. There were so many trees, so many victims…
Her stomach twisted and she fought the urge to vomit.
“What the hell is going on here?” Erik sounded shaken. “Where are we?”
Ainsley closed her eyes and forced herself to focus.
As she always had in times of stress, she turned her mind to her books. She had read so much about magic this winter. Surely this place could be explained.
The image of a small leather bound book appeared in her mind.
“I read about this,” she said. “Grace gave me a book about pocket dimensions.”
“What?” Erik asked.
“Pocket dimensions,” she repeated. “That’s what they used to trap the moroi. This must be something like that. It’s been here all along, but we must have accidentally opened it when we opened the portal that held the moroi.”
“That explains why we had so much trouble finding it,” Erik said. “The people, are they…”
Ainsley reached around the gauzy bonds to put a hand on Owen’s chest.
He was warm, and there was the slight rhythmic tremor of his heart.
“I think they’re still alive,” she said. “Some of them, at least.”
Erik slid a folding knife out of the pocket of his jeans. He began to cut away at the sticky strands securing Owen.
Ainsley moved to help him, then stopped.
“Something’s not right,” she said. “We’re not looking at this the right way.”
“What is it?” Erik stopped cutting.
“The other pocket dimension was used to imprison the moroi, because it was too dangerous to let loose, and too powerful to kill.”
“So?”
“So what do you think this one was meant to hold?”
As if in answer to her question, Ennis growled.
Ainsley spun to see something stirring just outside the clearing.
A creature stepped into view and stood frozen for a moment, as if assessing the situation.
It had the head and torso of a beautiful woman. She looked like a creation from an animated movie with beautiful obsidian black skin, and long white hair like filaments of silken web.
Where her hips should have been, a very different sort of body began. It was as if she were a centaur, but instead of a horse, she had the body of a grotesque spider the size of a VW Beetle.
The spider-creature stared unblinkingly at Ainsley with jet black, pupil-less eyes. In a landscape of yellows and browns, her onyx majesty was arresting.
Then she smiled.
It began as a wide, glamorous smile, then widened further until her whole face opened up like a flower to reveal shark-like rows of jagged teeth.
“You had to ask,” Erik murmured.
Quick as a thought, the monster whipped her body sideways and sent a jet of web that sec
ured Erik’s hand to the tree.
He began to hack at it with the knife in his other hand.
The creature closed the distance between them swiftly, traversing the rocky ground like a corps de ballet en pointe in a flash of her spindly legs.
Ainsley lifted her palms to summon a ball of energy to hurl.
But, like everything about the awful place, something was wrong. A weak flicker of blue light winked out almost before it came to life.
No.
Ainsley was transported to a memory of her magical training with Julian Magie in the backyard of an abandoned house - she’d tried to knock over a Coke bottle as he looked on disapprovingly.
No, it’s impossible. I’m getting better at magic.
But it was no use. No matter how hard she pushed, she couldn’t will the magic to appear. The old feeling of helplessness threatened to consume her as she watch the thing prepare to attack her mate.
Ennis leapt, teeth gleaming in the unnatural light. He managed to lock his jaws around one of its legs.
It threw him off effortlessly, letting out an ear-splitting noise that left Ainsley’s wolf whining in her chest.
She thought for a moment that he had at least wounded it. But the sound wasn’t a wail of distress.
It was a battle cry.
A rush of movement made it look for a moment like the woods themselves were running.
A wave of smaller spiders flowed into the clearing.
Ainsley had just long enough to appreciate the strangeness of thinking a dog-sized spider was small, before they swarmed toward her.
Panic threatened to overwhelm her, but she put it aside once again and willed herself to focus.
If she didn’t summon this magic, they were all going to die. Or worse, end up like Owen, waiting to become a meal, or an incubator, or whatever horrible fate he had in store. She could not let that happen. Not to Erik or Ennis. Not to her. Not to her baby.
At the thought of her family, magic crackled to life in her hand, the light blue sparks turning indigo as they swelled into a ball of light.
She hurled it at the incoming spiders, killing the ones in front, and knocking the rest back.
The monster shrieked as she watched her minions fall.
Ainsley focused in and prepared another ball of magic, this one surging and sparkling with power. She couldn’t muster the energy that would have come easily in the world outside, but it was something.
Behind her, Erik freed his hand and shifted, bursting out of his clothes.
The sight of his massive black wolf at her side gave her hope.
Ennis picked himself up and bounded over to join them.
There was another rush of chitinous bodies as the next wave of spiders set upon them.
Ainsley sent the ball sailing, knocking them out like bowling pins. Erik and Ennis took out the others in a flash of fur and teeth.
Another wave of spiders came.
And another.
There seemed to be no end.
Ainsley felt herself tiring, and she could see Ennis was panting hard.
A jet of spray caught him in the next wave, pinning him to the ground like a tiger in a net.
Ainsley tried to move to him, but the spiders cut her off and dragged him away.
“We need to take out the big one,” Ainsley shouted over the din of battle.
Erik sprang gracefully over the smaller spiders to attack the leader, landing on her back and tearing into her fleshy torso.
She squealed, in pain this time, thrashing herself back and forth as she tried to reach him.
Ainsley watched, the ball of light burning furiously in her hands. She wanted to help, but there was no guarantee she wouldn’t hit Erik instead.
While she was distracted a smaller spider approached. She kicked at it and almost lost her balance.
She was exhausted. She couldn’t go on like this much longer.
The monster whipped her body sideways and was able to partially dislodge Erik from her back. As he was flung like a rag doll, she struck, sinking her teeth into his side.
He yelped, then went limp.
The thing tossed him aside and he fell to the ground.
Smaller spiders moved in immediately, covering him with webs.
“No,” Ainsley roared. But the scuttle of busy feet and the cries of the creature covered the sound.
Enraged, Ainsley attacked with all she had, blowing off one of the monster’s front legs with her first burst of magic.
Not much of an arachnid anymore, bitch.
She stalked closer, wondering why it didn’t retreat.
In her anger, Ainsley had forgotten not to let the little spiders get behind her.
She had walked into a trap.
Cut off on all sides, she scanned the landscape for any chance of escape or help.
There was nothing, and no way out.
She raised her hand again to send another blast at the leader. She wouldn’t go out without a fight.
But her hand was struck with a strand of web before the magic was even summoned.
She tried to pull away, but it was impossibly strong.
More webs flew at her, binding her feet, causing her to fall to the ground. She went down hard on her hip, grateful that she hadn’t landed on her belly.
But then the monster was looming over her, blotting out the view of the mustard sunset. It smiled again, revealing jagged teeth, matted with Erik’s fur.
“No.” Ainsley tried to scream, but barely managed more than a whisper.
The creature lowered its venom-dripping fangs toward Ainsley’s helpless form.
Please, not the baby…
Ainsley closed her eyes.
Chapter 5
Grace blinked against the sudden darkness in the chamber. The moroi was there - she could sense it.
She willed herself to be still. The hair on the back of her neck stood up and she felt beads of sweat forming on her upper lip.
She raised her palms, readying herself to summon her magic, when she felt a tingle against her chest.
The crystal around her neck was glowing.
Quickly, she pulled the cord over her head, wrapping it around her hand and holding out the shard. The glowing light slid out to form into a beautiful sword as soon as she held it out, just as it had done back in Tarker’s Hollow.
This thing had been designed to fight the moroi.
She stepped into the center of the symbol on the floor. A wave of awareness swept through her as the energy from what was underneath pulsed out around the edges, seeping into her.
As her eyes adjusted, she was able to see something moving in the shadows. It clung to the walls, almost as if it were afraid of her.
Why?
Cressida and Javier moved toward her. She admired their bravery. They knew even less about what was going on than she did, but they had her back, without question.
Keeping her eyes fixed on the cowering movements of the moroi, she stilled as she felt the energy from the symbol beneath her feet begin to flow more freely. The floor itself was glowing now.
Magic.
Magic was flowing from it, even though it was sealed. So much magic…
She closed her eyes and opened herself to the rush of power. As it flowed into her, so did understanding.
She had played right into the moroi’s hands.
It needed her to unlock the door. If she hadn’t come along, it wouldn’t have been able to access this portal at all.
Esmerelda had said that Linc took her to dinner once. He knew about her magic.
But then he never called her again, because she wasn’t strong enough to get him in here.
When he saw Grace coming he’d played her from the start, played them all.
The realization was crushing, but not devastating. Because she also sensed something even more surprising.
The magic from the portal felt good.
It was as if Grace were standing on a fountain of sunshine - the feeling of wa
rm sand under bare feet, the sound of the bell ringing on the last day of school before summer vacation, the smell of her abuela’s churros…
This was light magic.
Grace had expected the trapped magic to be evil, like the moroi. But now that she thought about it, it was obvious that the magic trapped beneath would be good. The ones who had put these creatures of darkness away were light magicians. They would have used light magic to create and seal the gateways. It was their magic that had been drained to close the portals, cut off from the world for so many years.
As she lost herself to the sensation of all that warmth, Grace began to feel the connection to the other portals. There were so many of them, more than she had imagined. And they were all over the world.
There was so much magic just beneath the surface, locked away from the world where it belonged.
Esmerelda said her powers got stronger closer to the portal. Grace knew that this was true.
How strong would someone like Esmerelda be if the magic in the portal were free for her to access?
How much stronger would Grace be?
Would she be strong enough to kill a moroi?
Was that why it was being so cautious?
As if it read her thoughts, the thing suddenly took form. The shadows stretched and swelled, pouring themselves into a stooped and hulking thing.
Before her eyes, it stretched upward, extending bat-like wings.
The putrid stench that suddenly filled the air only added to the impression that this was pure evil, made real.
It held out a twisted claw of a hand and a blast of freezing cold knocked her back against Cressida and Javier.
The demon made a wet sound of satisfaction.
So it didn’t want her on the portal…
Before she had a chance to think about that, the thing dove for Javier. It was deceptively fast for its size.
Javier shifted and lunged, but it knocked him away. His furry body hit the stone floor hard.
It turned to Cressida, extending those claw-like hands to grasp her by the shoulders. But they closed on nothing.
Cressida was gone in a flutter of black feathers.
It turned to Grace.
She was all that stood against it now.
