The growl sounded again, and I watched Gary wince.
“So, uh, good luck.”
11
I stared at Gary for just another beat. The roar echoed through the room, causing these ugly walls to shake. Still, Gary didn’t seem concerned, and he didn’t seem particularly confused either.
He knew what was going on here. He probably knew exactly what was waiting for me up at the top of those stairs, and judging by the sly grin spreading across his face, he was enjoying the fact that I was going to have to deal with it.
“What are you waiting on, Roy boy? Weren’t you just telling me how badass you were? Don’t tell me everyone’s favorite demon half-breed is starting to get cold feet?” Gary asked, practically shaking as he struggled to hold back his laughter.
“Not at all,” I answered, clearing my throat and looking upward. “I’m just, you know, trying to survey the information on hand.” I shook my head. “Still as badass as ever, thank you very much. Though, I have to admit, I figured you’d be more concerned about my safety, seeing as how you spent the last seven years thinking I was dead.”
“That’s the beauty of it, Roy boy. I’ve spent so long thinking you kicked the bucket, it won’t be much of a culture shock if you actually did,” he answered with a smirk. “Also, I doubt Cer is going to kill you. He might throw your ass back down those steps, might even take a chunk out of your leg, but he probably won’t kill you.”
“Probably?” I asked, arching my brows and narrowing my eyes at the imp.
“Even condoms don’t give you a one hundred percent guarantee. I figure ‘probably’ is pretty good, all things considered,” he said, giving me a toothy grin. “Now get your legally deceased butt up there. The quicker you get past Cer, the quicker you can see Renee. You know, assuming you’re found worthy.”
“Worthy to see my own girlfriend?” I asked, moving closer to the staircases, and totally ignoring the very real possibility that she might not be mine anymore. “That’s new.”
“A lot of stuff is new,” Gary said, ignoring my girlfriend crack, which made me sort of hopeful Renee had waited for me. “Best way in is up the stairs.” He nodded at me. “I’ll see you up there, if you make it.”
“You just get to walk right up?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Oh, course not!” he balked. “There’s an elevator in the back. I was found worthy ages ago. Cer and I are practically best friends now.”
“Ouch,” I said, mock wincing. “I thought I was your best friend.”
Another roar pierced the silence.
“I guess we’ll see,” Gary chuckled, pointing upward again. “Best monster wins. Good luck, Roy boy.”
Gritting my teeth, I began up the leftmost staircase. Taking Gary’s advice to heart, I bound up the stairs with all the exuberance one might expect from somebody who hadn’t seen the woman he loved in a very long time.
Like Gary said, the quicker I got this trial behind me, the quicker Renee would be in my arms again, and the quicker I’d be able to keep her safe from the nightmare monster set on destroying her. A nagging truth still pulled at me. Things might be different. She might be up here, arm in arm with another man. I wasn’t sure how I was going to react to that. Still, seeing her would be a good thing, something in short supplies these days.
The stairs felt completely normal as I rushed upward even if the tight spiral jutted up so far toward the ceiling that my view of where they went was obscured, but other than that, it was pretty much like I was headed to the second floor of a Red Roof Inn or something.
Hell, maybe this would be easy. Maybe Cer was nothing more than a disembodied voice, a sort of echoed boogeyman meant to scare people who were undeserving of Renee away from her before they got a chance to be near her.
It was basically Ferris Bueller’s voice on a recording pretending to be sick, and I had a choice. I could either be his dimwitted mother offering to bring him soup and telling myself what a great son I had, or I could be Jennifer Grey, stare right through his bullshit, and get stuff done.
So I rushed forward, gathering my inner Jennifer Grey, and bounded further up the stairs.
They began to level off as I got higher. Soon enough, the floor was a distant memory, and I found myself standing on a flat plank. The staircase had receded into a thin strip of wood. On either side was open air, and the drop was way more than enough to reduce me to a splatter mark all over the ugly floor below. Across the great divide sat a large door with ornate marking on it. Lightning bolts and clouds sat etched against what looked to be birch wood and, in front of that, was a lit torch held up on a pedestal.
I wasn’t sure why, but a certainty popped into my head. If I could grab the torch, the door would open for me. Okay, it seemed simple enough. There was a bit of a tightrope act involved, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. After all, I had basically just broken out of Hell. A glorified version of walking the plank didn’t scare me.
Then the roar sounded again. It was louder than before, so loud in fact, it shook the plank beneath my feet.
My muscles tensed, and my heart jumped as I steadied myself against the vibrations. Noise wasn’t the only complication though. I heard loud claps and then, from the darkness, finally saw the source of the roar.
A huge dog with three heads growled at me. Slobber poured from three separate mouths, and three sets of glowing eyes locked onto mine, seemingly intent on ripping me into what I could only assume would be equal thirds.
“Dammit, Ferris,” I muttered and rushed forward before my mind could tell me how bad an idea this was.
Gary was confident this thing wouldn’t kill me, but he was right, condoms break all the time. Ask any kid after prom about that.
I powered up as it roared, sending another shockwave through my pitiful excuse for a walkway.
As the sheer intensity of the beast’s roar hit me, a large crack splintered down the middle of the walkway as it raced toward me.
Damn. There was no way my weight wouldn’t crack the plank in two and sent me tumbling to my certain death. If I was going to make it past and avoid ending up like a mosquito against a windshield at the bottom of the stairs, I was going to have to think of something quickly.
Letting my blue warlock energy take precedent over the red demonic pieces of me wanting to rip this thing’s heart out, I whispered a word at the exact moment my weight caused the plank to split apart under my feet.
“Thicken.”
The air beneath me followed my command. It was shaky at first, causing me to stumble backward, but the air clumped together in thick enough mass to allow me to stand on it-albeit a bit wobbly- and then continue on my path across the abyss.
The dog didn’t seem too impressed though, leading me to believe that dogs might be a pretty tough audience. After all, I’d just solidified air. He barked again, sending shockwaves out toward me, but my power wasn’t linked to the ground, and as such, wasn’t effected by all that nonsense. So I just kept walking forward, my grin widening with every step.
As I neared the thing, the scent of wet hair and turds hit me full force, but I was too focused on the three heads to care. Each of the heads had different colored eyes. Red for the center, and green and blue for each of the side heads respectively, and all six of them looked at me with ravenous hunger.
Let me just say that if this was Gary’s new best friend, his standards had dipped drastically in the last seven years.
Catching on to what I had done, the dog leapt into the air, landing on the solidified oxygen under me. Its weight caused my power to stretch nearly to the breaking point, and I struggled to keep the air strong enough to hold both of us.
I mustered what little power I had left and used a burst of blue energy to propel myself upward. I soared over the dog, but one of the heads latched onto my foot.
Sharp teeth dug into my ankle, tearing my Achilles tendon. Agony exploded up my leg like liquid fire, and as a scream of pain tore from my lips, I lashed
out at the dog. The demon within me sprang to life, its rage and hunger taking over before I could even think of stopping it.
As its life force began to drain into me, it jerked away in shock, letting go of my foot.
I fell onto the solidified air, but managed to use my rage to pull myself forward. I couldn’t stand, and my foot was gushing blood, but the torch was right there, right in front of me. All I had to do was grab it.
The dog mewled behind me, no longer willing to take a bite out of my hide after what I’d just done to it. So, instead of preparing to fight it again, I simply let go of the spell keeping the air solid, hoping the damn thing would fall to its death, and grabbed the torch.
Two things happened. The door in front of me swung open (proving I was worthy) as the damned dog leapt over me and bounded into the room.
Guess wishes weren’t horses today.
I crawled forward, pulling myself forward with my free hand while clinging to the torch with the other.
The room beyond the door was full of blinding white light. I couldn’t anything inside. Luckily, it would take me upwards of ten years to pull my hobbled ass into it at the rate I was going, so my eyes would have plenty of time to adjust.
“Pick him up,” I heard Renee’s sweet voice say from a distance. “He’s proved himself worthy.” I heard the trepidation in her voice as she uttered the next phrase. “Worthy to meet a queen.”
12
Hands grabbed both of my arms and pulled me forward into the blinding light ahead. My leg pulsated with pain, but other than the pain, the sensation of coming into the light was nothing short of miraculous. The light bathed over me and I arched my head up, hoping to see who was carrying me, but the light made it impossible to tell.
“It’s okay, Roy,” I heard Renee say from somewhere off in the distance. “You’re here now. You’re back with me.”
Just listening to those words sent warmth through me. I was back with her. Maybe that was enough. Maybe everything would be okay after all. Or maybe I was being too optimistic. Everything had changed in the time I’d been gone. Scott was different, Gary was different, and Renee was certainly different. What if those differences were too much to deal with? What if she didn’t want me anymore? What if, in addition to a sword wielding, armor wearing hottie, she had gotten married and turned into a soccer mom as well? Would I be able to deal with that? Would saving her be enough if I couldn’t have her?
My ankle burned. The stupid dog had really done a number on it, and the idea that my foot might not survive if the gaping wound I’d suffered wasn’t dealt with pretty quickly crossed my mind. Still, I had endured more than a few flesh wounds in my life. Such is the plight of the reluctant hero. I had never known any of them to burn though.
The sensation grew in my leg, burning and prickling like needles sewing up and down my foot. Finally, the hands dropped me, and the blinding light receded.
The burning sensation disappeared in my foot, and as I glanced toward it, I found the wound had completely healed.
There was still a trail of blood leading from outside the room to where I now lay, but the injury I’d suffered was gone. Completely.
“Wow,” I muttered, looking at my newly whole ankle. “That’s pretty cool.”
“You’re welcome, Roy,” Renee’s voice chimed. It was closer now, right above me. Instantly, my head jerked forward. Looking up, I saw everyone I’d come across since my inauspicious return to this plane. Gary, Scott, Abram, and even that damned dog Cer stood before me. I paid little attention to any of them though.
I had better things to spend my focus on, namely one Renee Cypress. She stared down at me and suddenly all the things that seemed so different the first time I saw her back in the alley fell away. All I noticed were those eyes, that face, the way her lips curled up into a smile at the ends. She might be a little older. She might be dressed in a glowing long white robe. None of that mattered. She was here. She was with me. The rest of it could be dealt with.
“Look at you,” I stammered, taking a deep breath and trying to keep tears from filling my eyes. There was no reason to look like a complete tool so quickly in our reunion. “My God.”
“Goddess actually,” Gary chuckled. “Don’t worry. It took me a while to get it down at first too.”
“What?” I asked, confusion filling my voice. “Renee, what’s he talking about?”
“Things he shouldn’t be,” she answered, and glared at Gary with a ferocity I hadn’t seen in her before. “At least not yet.” What did that mean? Did Gary’s gibberish actually mean something this time?
Looking around, I saw the room we were in was completely white. Torches lined the walls, the flames flickering at their ends were a ghostly white color which blended in with the walls so well, it made them almost completely invisible.
The expanse of white was long and narrow, free of any windows. Looking past Renee, which was admittedly hard to do, I saw a big ass throne, similar in color to the rest of the room.
“Stand up, Roy,” she said, extending a hand to me. I reached for it, but before she actually touched me, a force pulled me to my feet and gently sat me in front of her.
Now that we were both on our feet, I was reminded how much taller I was than Renee. Having seen her standing over me twice, especially in the outfits she was wearing, gave her the appearance of being much taller, much more intimidating. Now though, she was just my Renee again. She was different, of course. Everything about her told me as much, but there was still a familiarity to her which set my mind at ease and my heart to racing. I wanted more than anything to tell her how much I loved her, to make her mine the way she had been just two weeks ago (for me anyway). I knew though, I knew it had been longer for her. She wasn’t the same person I left behind and- what was more- she might not be available to pick things back up the way I ached to.
“Should we go?” Scott asked, looking not at me, but at my girlfriend. “Maybe give the two of you a little time to catch up.” He cleared his throat. “And catch up on things.”
“That sounds like a lovely idea, Scott. Thank you for thinking of it,” Renee answered, though her eyes never left me. She raised a hand, and with a flash of blinding light that made the first flash look positively dim by comparison, Scott, Gary, and that creaky asshole Abram were gone.
Suddenly, it was just Renee and I, standing in what I could only assume was the hardest to keep clean throne room in all of history.
That wasn’t all. She had changed as well. Her face was etched with the lines created during the time we’d been apart, and her hair was still different. Her clothes had changed though. The armor was gone, replaced by a simple skirt and blouse. Suddenly, she looked like Atlanta’s assistant district attorney again. There was something different though, a wisdom in her eyes which changed her for the better. She was like herself, only aged to perfection.
“You look well…” she said, blinking hard and smiling at me. “You look…the same.”
The layer of pain in her voice broke my heart. What had happened in the years that had elapsed for her since the last time we spoke? How much hurt had she gone through? How much pain had she pushed down in order to deal with whatever was happening to her right now?
All I wanted to do was hold her, to tell her everything was going to be okay, but how could I do that?
She had power. She had authority, and what was more, it looked as though she had learned to make it through without me. Could I just swoop back in and pretend everything was the way it had been and, if I could, was it even something I should do? And what about her? What about what she wanted, what she deserved?
“Well, it hasn’t been that long for me,” I answered, swallowing hard. “You look good too.”
“I look old, I’m sure,” she answered, looking up at me with almost apologetic eyes, like aging was some sort of betrayal she'd leveled against me. “Seven years older since the last time you saw me.” She shook her head. “Too old to-”
“To what?
Twerk?” I asked, letting a smirk pull at my lips. “That’s probably not a bad thing. I was three years older than you before all of this anyway. A four-year age difference is nothing.” I shuffled uncomfortably, hoping for a good answer to the next question I was about to allude to. “Unless, you’re not as single as you were when I left.”
“I wasn’t single when you left, Roy,” she said quickly. “I was with you.” Her eyes flickered down to the floor. “And then I wasn’t. Then you were gone, and I was alone.” She shook head. “Not alone. I had Gary and Scott, and they were amazing, but they weren’t-”
“They weren’t me,” I said, and it wasn’t a question. I knew what she meant. I had left, and she had to deal with all of this on her own.
“I’m so damn sorry about that,” I said quietly.
“Don’t you dare,” Renee said. “You did what you had to. You thought you were saving me. Don’t ever apologize for that.”
A spike rose in my heart. “Thought?” I asked, my brows arching. “What do you mean thought? I didn’t save you?”
“You did,” she said and took my hand. The sensation was indescribable. I felt at peace. I felt at home. “But things were more complicated than we knew. When you left, we thought it would open the door to the Benefactor.”
“My father,” I said, squeezing her palm.
“My gods,” she muttered, looking at me. “The Benefactor is your father?”
“Did you say gods?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at her.
“One thing at a time, baby,” she said almost coyly. “Like I said, when you left, we thought it was all over. We thought the Bene- your father was going to come rushing through some portal at any second. We had to do something. We had to make a stand. So we did what we had to.”
“You went to the Astra coven,” I answered with a sigh.
“I know what they did to you and your mother, and it killed me to ask them for help. But we were afraid and alone, and I still didn’t know how to deal with what happened to me.” Her face looked pained, as though she was reliving all that she'd been through again. A pang of guilt ran through me. Not being here had allowed all of this to happen to her and-whether I had meant for it to happen or not- it was my fault.
Blood and Treasure_An Urban Fantasy Novel Page 6
