by K. F. Breene
A smaller roar announced the arrival of the pink dragon. It soared above the melee, but as soon as it got a look at the black dragon, it frantically lifted itself up and away.
The black dragon hovered for a moment, the flap of its wings audible, drowning out the shouts, yells, and clangs of battle. The fighting slowed. Crowds started to disperse.
Dread pierced me. Only the dragon of one person could stop this kind of carnage.
Lucifer.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Clearly the demons from the sect we’d just vacated hadn’t done a great job of holding Lucifer off.
“Run like hell,” I said to Darius, now shoving through the outer edge of the gawking crowd.
Something else flew above the crowds, not as big as a dragon, but a great bird of sorts. As it glided by, a shock wave of fear pulsed through me, stilling my heart and making me stop with my mouth hanging open. When the winged thing stopped above the largest cluster of—now frozen—fighters, I finally got a good look at it.
The flying demon had arms and legs like a man, with three toes that almost looked webbed. Like everything else in this place, its fingers ended in claws. The great wings, black against the sky, beat steadily, keeping it hovering in the air. Its hooked ears reminded me of horns, but if they were, I couldn’t see them from the distance. A tail whipped out behind it.
The crowd pushed away, giving the demon plenty of room to land. This was one dangerous mother trucker.
“Go, go, go,” I said, all action again, pushing at Darius.
We kept our heads down and weaved in and out of people, hiding at the back of the crowd against the hedge. At the bend in the path we’d abandoned before, I heard, “What has caused this? Where are your conspectors?”
I slowed without meaning to, hearing the enchantment in that voice. Not able to help myself, I looked back…
I expected to see a wall of demons.
Instead, as though I’d made it happen, a tunnel had opened up through the shifting sea of underworld creatures. A ways away, within a circle of empty space, stood a man clothed in form-fitting jeans and a white shirt. They were clothes Darius might’ve worn, and obviously created with magic because I doubted there was an abundance of human clothes in this place. He had slicked-back black hair and a lean but muscular body.
“Get your conspectors. Bring them to me,” the man called in a voice that carried. I heard it as though he was standing right next to me. Felt the magic powering it. Saw the weave that expertly blended the two halves of magic until they were one.
It could only be one person.
Darius pulled my arm as the man turned, showing me some of his face. Even from this distance I could tell he was handsome, with poise and a confident bearing. He stood among the demons as if he owned them, fully in charge. At ease, though he’d just interrupted a grizzly battle.
Come, Darius said, pulling me along.
I had the fleeting impression that the man was turning toward me, but I stepped behind the wall of demons once again, out of sight.
“That was my dad,” I whispered as I ran on wooden legs. “I felt it.”
Almost certainly. We must go.
I shook my head against the longing to meet him, more powerful than I would have expected but probably typical of adult children in similar situations. Okay, only similar in the never-met-your-father way. I picked up speed, staying tight to the hedge. When I looked back, I saw a few demons glancing our way, more running toward the neighboring sect—probably to get their master. The pink dragon was flapping in the air at the edges of the battle, its head pointed right at us.
“I hope that black dragon doesn’t let the pink one go flapping around.” I pushed in tighter to the hedge. I certainly didn’t want the black dragon to see us go.
We ran out the way we’d come, up the hill and toward the beginning of the illusion. Except when we got there, we didn’t find a desert. Or a lovely green field dotted with wildflowers. We found a wide pathway that led to two arched doorways. Fire raged within the frame of the one on the right, and on the left, fluffy white clouds drifted across a bright blue sky.
“I feel like I have just sat down to a poison duel with a Sicilian,” I mumbled.
What? Darius frowned at me.
I shook my head. He needed to watch more movies. “Basically, the fire door looks terrible. You’d assume whoever set this shebang up is trying to steer you to the blue door—and you do not want to do what they want you to do. So then you take the fire door. But, what if they realized that you’d think it was a trap, and they knew you’d take the fire door, so in the end, it’s the blue door that is safe?”
His frown became more pronounced.
“If you’d gotten the Princess Bride reference, you wouldn’t be confused right now.” I glanced back the way we’d come. The sect had disappeared, replaced by a vision of a path crowned with glistening arches of ice that abruptly ended in an inferno. Flames curled up from a huge pit, reaching into the black sky above. “Nice.”
It is impossible to say which path goes where. He looked back and forth between them, and back the way we’d come. But we do need to choose. They will have discovered the dead conspector by now, and when the other sect swears they didn’t kill them, someone will mention the human and vampire escaping. They’ll come looking for us.
“I’d go fire.” I pointed, as if he didn’t know which I meant.
I can withstand larger quantities of heat now that we’re bonded, but I’m not sure I can withstand that degree of fire.
“Given that the dragon kept trying to fry people, I don’t think just anyone can withstand fire. This is probably just for show.”
Darius started forward, hard-faced. Without hesitation, and not much of a heart uptick, he walked straight into the sheet of flame and disappeared.
“We probably should’ve done that together,” I muttered as I hurried after him. For all I knew, we’d be sectioned off into two different places.
No heat surrounded my body. The flame didn’t lick my skin.
“My father the magic man.” The illusion cleared and I bumped into the back of Darius’s nude human form, standing on a wooden pathway that cut through clear blue water to a large, multi-roomed hut on stilts. There was no other path but toward it. Light pink and purple clouds hung low over the setting faux-sun in the light blue sky. Absolutely gorgeous clear water stretched forward into infinity.
“Keep your eyes up,” Darius said as he started forward.
“I wonder if the vultures in the desert belonged to one of the sects in that battle.” The waters moved like a calm ocean, with ripples and small waves.
“Up, I said.”
I yanked my gaze up from the water and glanced at the sky. Nothing awaited us. The hut loomed closer.
“It is likely,” Darius answered. “Though which one, I couldn’t say. I would’ve expected those birds to be in the battle.”
“With the dragons? They wouldn’t have lasted two minutes.”
Darius didn’t answer.
“I wonder if Vlad knows about the dragons,” Darius muttered. “Those creatures would dominate a land battle in the Realm.”
“My father would dominate a land battle in the Realm.”
“You only say that because you haven’t seen what some of the elves are capable of. Or a host of fae.”
And I didn’t want to. I wanted to go home, have a glass of wine, sleep for a decade, and go back to my old life hunting marks that had very little power or sense. This was too much work, and a war in the Realm sounded even worse.
Something was hunched beside the front door of the hut, just out of the glaring light spilling out onto the porch. I slowed with Darius, who clearly saw the same thing, twenty feet from the door, head moving as if scanning for a surprise attack.
“Should I just kill it?” I asked, looking over my shoulder. The bigger problem would be something coming behind us.
“Let’s approach.”
“I’m yo
ur Huckleberry.” I frowned. Because he wouldn’t get that reference, either. Ridiculous. How was I supposed to relate to the man when he didn’t speak in movie quotes?
The demon hunched a little more as we neared, holding its hands in front of its scabby chest like an old woman worried about a burglar.
That is the demon Callie and Desmond called, Darius thought.
I squinted into the shadow beside the door, my eyes playing tricks because of the light streaming out of the building. A gray knobby thing stared back, not stepping forward.
“Honestly, I saw that demon before my memory got an upgrade. It doesn’t look much different from all the others we’ve seen.”
Darius glanced behind. We don’t have time to dwell. Find out what it wants, beware of a surprise attack, and kill it if you can.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
When we reached the front of the hut, Darius continued forward, scouting the building. I stopped beside the demon, my power at the ready.
“Heir,” the demon said softly, not inching toward me.
“Everyone else who knew that information is now dead.”
“I’m bound to you. I can tell no one of what I know, and I cannot rest until you are safely out of these lands. Please, let me guide you. Only then can I be released.”
“We’re clear.” Darius’s voice echoed through the hut.
“What do you mean, released?” I asked, edging in through the door.
“Mistress Banks impressed upon me to guide you. This trinket led me to you.” It turned over a clawed hand to reveal a round imprint on its palm. “But the magic near the castle changes. I am not of the type able to go through to the other side of the inner gates.”
“How’d you know I would come out here?” I asked, edging a little farther into the hut.
“This is the entrance closest to the sect to which you were heading.”
It occurred to me that both doors from the ones we’d had to choose from would’ve led to the same place.
A crackle drew my gaze toward the area from which we’d come. Subtle blue lights, a shade darker than the water, flashed.
“Does that mean someone is coming through?” I asked as I jog-stepped deeper into the hollow hut.
“Yes. Do they follow you?”
“Of course they follow me! What do you think I am, subtle?” I wrapped the demon in air and tugged it behind me as I ran, my footsteps echoing. Darius waited on the other side with his satchel strung across his bare chest, looking up.
“We gotta go.” I ran past him with the demon bouncing along behind me. If I’d focused more, I probably could’ve kept it suspended a little better, but I was tired. It was lucky I hadn’t killed it.
“I still see no vultures.” Darius dug into his satchel, and I hoped he was looking for a miracle. A moment later he caught up. A quick glance behind us revealed he’d thrown up a privacy spell. Why he hadn’t gone for a more violent solution, I didn’t know, but there wasn’t time to amend the situation.
“Where to, guide?” I yelled at the demon.
“At the frung pond, we will go right.” Its directions were interrupted with a couple grunts when it bounced.
“What’s a frung—” The illusion of the pretty bay washed away to reveal a grassy area surrounding a small pound. A frog jumped from a lily pad upon our sudden entrance, disappearing into splash-less water. The water didn’t even ripple. “Frog pond, did you mean?”
“Frung. That creature that just jumped.” The demon pointed a gnarled hand right. “That way.”
Darius worked at his satchel, his eyes darting behind us.
“I’ll kill you if you are trying to trap us,” I told the demon, unsure. Since we’d come out in a different place than we’d gone in, and everything was disguised by layers of camouflage, I had no idea where we were.
A fact presented itself in my Memory 2.0.
“Wait.” I held up my hand, thinking. “You said there is only one entrance near the sect I was originally headed to.”
“Yes. And you came through it. I hoped you would.”
“But we went in through a desert illusion.”
“The landscapes change, though the locations of the sects, oases, and throughways remain the same. Had you come to me, I would’ve—”
“Let’s go.” Darius had coated one spell on top of another and lobbed them behind us. I felt the vibration from the distance, though I couldn’t see any shimmer. A nasty, invisible spell that would blast anyone attempting to follow us.
“We came from that way when we entered the desert area.” I pointed, still discombobulated.
“That is usually the faster path if you need to go around sects, and often safer, but there is unrest,” the demon said. “Fighting has not yet broken out, but my sect is expecting it to happen at any time. We are not involved, but even still, we are protecting our borders.”
“What is stirring up all this trouble?” I asked as Darius nodded and headed right. “And why do you speak English when no one else seems to?”
Something we can discuss later, Darius thought as we ran.
“Just because a demon doesn’t speak English, or French, or elvish,” the demon said in a collection of grunts as it bounced along, “doesn’t mean it can’t. It just means it will not lower itself to do so.”
“Is that like the fact that I could keep you from hitting the ground, but that answer makes me not want to?”
The demon didn’t respond.
The terrain changed into a bumpy sort of path lined with smoothed rocks, the sides ever closer together, and a ceiling that jutted down in areas, making me feel like it was about to squish me. A blast sounded behind us, rattling my teeth. I glanced back, but a rock blocked my view.
“Faster, Darius,” I said, pushing for more speed.
I will need blood soon.
I nodded, though he couldn’t see me, and tore around a corner after him. It took me a second to realize there was another way we could’ve gone.
“Is this right?” I asked the demon, slowing.
Darius half staggered and reached over to brace his hand on the rocks. He did need blood.
“This way leads to a lustful sect.” I could hear the sneer in its voice. “The other to a sect that usually identifies more with a human’s version of love. Either way is safe enough. This one is faster.”
Darius jogged back the way we’d come, reaching into his satchel. Instead of putting a spell on the entrance to the path we were on, however, he put it on the other.
“Clever. Though they might realize you are fooling them.” I narrowed my eyes as I considered the many-layered possibilities.
Darius set the spell before stopping in the entrance of our path and setting another.
I smiled and nodded at him. “Right. Better idea. You’re so smart.”
“You are becoming giddy,” Darius said as he laid the spell. Something else nasty.
“Yes, I am, sir. I am half delirious. But that just makes me more dangerous, I am sure of it.”
“More oblivious, at any rate.” He closed the flap on his satchel and started to run.
I tore off after him, noticing his lack of grace, which surely meant he and I were in the same boat. There was no telling how many days we’d been up for, but the real problem was the amount of energy we’d been expending nonstop.
The rock corridor opened onto the peak of a cliff, surrounded by a collection of other cliffs. Red stars twinkled above, below, and across the way, not relegated to the faux-sky. The cliff kitty-corner to ours rose higher than the others. Water surged over the top and enjoyed a free fall before cascading down the cliff face. A demon made its way along a path cut into that cliff face, similar to the one we’d used on our way in. It disappeared behind the rushing water and spray.
“The entrance is behind that waterfall?” I asked, motioning for Darius to grab the waistline of my pants so I could scoot toward the edge and look over. I didn’t want to fall over the side.
The water d
isappeared into a pool of blackness my night vision couldn’t penetrate.
“Yes. The fastest way is to go through, however unpleasant. We will then be one neutral sect from the river.”
This seemed faster than the way we’d come, though that might be because we’d told my pouch-wearing friend that we didn’t want to go through any more sects.
I motioned for Darius to pull me back. “Do they just let anyone go through?”
“No,” the demon said. “We must request admittance.”
I ran my hand across my face, uncertainty pulling at me. “How long would it take to go around?”
“We would then need to pass through four sects—”
“No.” I slashed the air with my hand. “Going through is not an option for us. Can we get around?”
Still hunched on the ground, it rubbed at the mark on its palm. Its excitement about serving the Great Master’s heir seemed to have faded, but when the dual-mage team set out to bully someone, they really got the job done. It was their attention to detail that had me listening to the demon at all. They would’ve made sure to bind it to my good health and well-being, ensuring it did right by me and didn’t try to set me up.
The problem was, what it thought would help me might actually imprison me or get me killed.
“We could get around, but it would take much longer. We’d be open to the sky for most of that journey.”
“Dragons,” Darius said softly.
“The number of dragons they will use depends on how much you are wanted,” the demon said, looking back the way we’d come. “Maybe none. Maybe the fleet. It depends on if they suspect you or not.”
“We are a human and vampire wielding magic in a time of high strife. They’ll want us.” I hung my head. “Okay. Let’s head over to the demon sex club and hope they admit us.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The spray of the waterfall didn’t splash my face, but the rumble nearly deafened me as we passed under the surging waters. A glistening gate that wasn’t actually wet pushed into the smooth rock of the cliff face. The metal door stood open, and as we neared, the water rushing overhead fell silent. A strange hush fell over the hollow.
