Edge of the Darkness (Hell on Earth Book 4)

by Brenda K. Davies

  Beyond them, their horses were also fighting. They struck and kicked at each other as their teeth clacked, and they tried to take each other down. The horses blocked the tunnel where War had entered, but even if they didn’t, I couldn’t leave Wrath to this fight alone. He hadn’t abandoned me to his fellow horsemen and, enemy or not, I wouldn’t abandon him.

  I sprinted across the floor and picked up the battered remains of War’s sword with my one good arm and hand. I was lucky my wounded shoulder and broken hand were both on my right side. I still had full use of my left side.

  When I turned back to the horsemen, they were rolling along the wall and bashing each other against it. Debris rained down from above, and the tunnel quaked so much that a jagged crack raced across the ceiling.

  This had to end before they brought the entire place down on top of us.

  Running toward them, I watched as Wrath spun and lifted War off the ground. He bashed him into the wall three times before the rock gave way and War’s body indented the stones. Jagged fissures ran across the floor as fragments fell from the ceiling and shattered on the ground.

  I sprinted in and out of the cascading debris, but some of it still bounced off my shoulders and head. No. No. No! The word ran in a constant loop through my mind as I closed in on them.

  And then they were spinning again, and War was hammering Wrath into the wall. Pulling back the sword, I plunged it into War’s back as the wall behind Wrath gave way. I was still running as the broken blade pierced through flesh and buried itself in sinew.

  The sword didn’t go as far into him as it would have if it still possessed a honed tip, but it caused War’s back to bend, and he released a guttural shout. I crashed into him as the wall behind Wrath gave way. Still holding onto Wrath, War fell forward. My momentum and my grip on the hilt made it impossible for me not to follow them.

  I kept hold of the sword as darkness consumed us. War was only inches away from me, but I couldn’t see him.

  As I fell, a clawing, rending certainty tore at me. My heart stopped beating, my body became encased in a sheen of icy sweat, and a scream reverberated in my head. Wind whipped at my hair and clothes as the darkness engulfed me.

  A cold certainty knotted in my stomach as I fell faster. I’d followed them over the edge of the darkness that had haunted me for centuries.

  Once this fall came to an end, I would finally have the answers I’d always dreaded. Once this fall came to an end, I would find myself at the mercy of whatever lay below, and I suspected it was my death.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Wrath

  I didn’t know how far we fell until I hit the ground. It felt like we traveled hundreds, if not thousands, of feet before coming to an abrupt halt. The impact was bad enough to crack a few ribs, but War’s body crashing down on top of me added insult to injury. And then, the smaller impact of Bale caused me to grunt as another rib gave way.

  She shouldn’t be here with us. I didn’t know where we were, where the breaking wall had dumped us, but it wasn’t safe here for her. The idea of her in danger renewed my strength and determination to end this with War.

  Though every part of me ached and my ribs protested any movement, I grasped War’s head as he planted his hands on my chest and started to push himself up. I twisted it to the side and listened to the echoing snap rebounding off what sounded like more tunnel walls.

  Paralyzed, War went limp against me. I plunged my fingers into the hole in his throat. It had already started to heal, but I dug my fingers in and tore it further open as I lifted it and ripped his head from his shoulders.

  Grasping his head under his chin, I threw it aside and listened as it thudded and rolled into the shadows. A shifting in the weight on top of me alerted me that Bale was scrambling off War a second before she landed beside me. Lifting War’s body, I shoved it aside and pushed myself into a seated position.

  Inhaling deeply, I took a minute to steady myself as my power remained out of my control. Gradually, I was able to contain it again while I pondered what I’d done. I felt no remorse over killing War. He had to die to keep Bale safe, and I liked him about as much as I liked dirt, but there would be consequences for my actions.

  I couldn’t return to my fellow horsemen. When they learned what I’d done, they would kill me, just as I would have killed one of them for doing the same thing. We all despised each other, but we couldn’t have someone we didn’t trust living with us, and I was that someone.

  I didn’t miss any of the fallen horsemen; other than missing their abilities and strengths, I was glad they were dead. When this was over, I’d planned to leave them, but I hadn’t planned on them hunting me.

  And if they learned the truth, they would hunt me until the day they died. There was no love between us, we didn’t care when one of us fell, but this was a matter of principle; I’d killed one of our own for a paliton, and it didn’t matter she was my Chosen. I would have hunted one of them if they’d done this.

  However, that was a problem for later. We had the bigger issue of learning where we were and getting out of here to deal with first.

  I turned to search the shadows, but the darkness was so complete it was impossible to see anything. I knew Bale sat beside me because her arm brushed mine, but I couldn’t see her.

  Lifting my hand, I willed my fire to life, and flames sprang from my fingertips. The small influx of light revealed War’s headless body and his black blood spilling across a golden floor. My brow furrowed at the sight of that floor, and I lifted my gaze to the golden walls surrounding us.

  Beside me, Bale shuddered, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with the body. She’d seen enough death and delivered enough of it to others to be affected by the sight of a body.

  Lifting my hands, I let the flames play over the golden walls stretching as far as I could see. To the right and above us, the ceiling was well over a thousand feet up. The gold spread up to the hole we’d fallen through and further up the wall until I couldn’t see it anymore.

  The hole we’d fallen through was a good five hundred feet overhead. The wall was so smooth there was no way we could scale it to escape this place the same way we entered.

  I studied the hole for some sign of Zorn, but he didn’t appear. War’s horse would have turned to ash the second War died, which meant Zorn would be okay. An extension of us and our powers, our horses couldn’t sustain life without us, and they were a big part of who we were. Knowing that Zorn was safe eased some of the tension from my shoulders. He had to leave the cavern before Death and Pride returned; I would find him again once we were out of here.

  When I moved my hand to the left, the tunnel narrowed, and a golden ceiling, only twenty feet up instead of hundreds, came into view, as did War’s head. Lying on its cheek with its mouth ajar, War’s sightless eyes held mine.

  I smiled at the fucker who probably assumed he would easily kill me. He’d learned the hard way which of us was more powerful; I suspected that before all this was over, my fellow horsemen would also learn that truth.

  I shifted my attention from War and back to our surroundings. More statues lined the hall, except there were far more of them down here than above, and they were also in a lot of different positions.

  The ones above fascinated me, but these caused an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I turned the flame to Bale to illuminate the pallor of her skin and the whiteness of her compressed lips as she stared around the cavern with wild eyes.

  “Are you okay?” I rested my hand near the blood seeping onto her shirt.

  “I’m fine,” she muttered. “It’s already healing, and so is my hand.”

  I glanced at the hand resting in her lap. It was black and blue and looked more like a lump of dirt than a hand. I ground my teeth together as I took in the damage that asshole had inflicted on her. Then she tilted her head back to look above us.

  Lifting the flame higher, I returned my attention to the hole we fell through. Zorn now stood there with hi
s head hanging through the hole. He snorted and stomped his hooves off the rocks.

  “Go!” I commanded. “Get out of the tunnels and get outside before the others return. I’ll find you as soon as I can.”

  “Shh,” Bale whispered.

  Zorn snorted again and stomped his hooves one more time before vanishing. I stared at the hole, hoping he would get free of the tunnels before the others returned. They couldn’t kill him, but they could keep him from me. I’d rather have my eyes poked out every day for a thousand years than endure the loss of Zorn.

  Finally, I turned my flame back to discover Bale staring at me.

  “This is bad. This is so very, very bad,” she whispered.

  “War is dead.”

  “This is worse than War. This is… This is… We’ve fallen through the darkness.”

  “The darkness from your dreams?”

  “Yes. I finally know what’s been coming for me.”

  Despite her paleness and the small tremor in her voice, she lifted her chin higher, and her eyes blazed with determination.

  “And what’s that?” I asked.

  “Eldorata. The darkness is Eldorata.”

  I glanced at the golden walls surrounding us. “And what is Eldorata?”

  She lifted a hand to her forehead and took a deep breath; she held it before slowly releasing it. “Of course, the darkness would be Mytaz.”

  “I’m confused. Is the darkness Mytaz or Eldorata?”

  “It’s both. Mytaz is a demon last seen about three hundred years ago. He terrorized demons for a couple of hundred years before that, but he mainly stuck to his little corner of Hell. A corner he named Eldorata. It wasn’t until he started to expand out of Eldorata that Kobal decided it was time to eradicate him.”

  “Of course, the varcolac decided he should be judge and jury.”

  The look she sent me could have withered a calamut. “You have no idea the havoc and misery Mytaz inflicted before then. He had to be destroyed.”

  “What did he do that was so bad?”

  Bale waved a hand at the golden walls. “This. He did all of this.”

  I gazed at the gold surrounding us before shrugging. “So what? He liked carving statues out of hell rock and turning them an ugly color. I’m not sure how he turned them gold, but there are many secrets in Hell.”

  “The statues aren’t carvings made from hell rock. They’re demons.”

  I stared at her as I tried to process her words. Before I could question her further, she rose and walked away. When she disappeared into the shadows, I waited for her to come back, but she didn’t return.

  I pushed myself to my feet and followed her into the darkness. The golden floor was cool and smooth beneath my bare feet, and I didn’t make a sound as I moved; neither did Bale.

  I found her thirty feet away, standing in the middle of the tunnel with her head in her hands and her shoulders hunched forward. At first, I thought she was crying again, but when she turned to me, there was only rage in her eyes.

  Beyond her, dozens of statues lined the hall, and when I lifted my flame higher, I saw they continued onward for as far as I could see. Unlike above, where twenty or thirty feet separated each of them, these statues were all right next to each other.

  Almost all of them were in a different pose. Some knelt on the ground with their hands raised as if to ward off a blow, others were running, one lay on her back with her hands over her face, some held something before them as if they were handing it to someone, and three had their arms over their heads as they cowered from something.

  The more I looked, the more variations of poses I saw. Little in this world and Hell had ever unnerved me, but my skin crawled at the display of countless statues in their various positions of pain, fear, and desperation.

  “What did you mean by they’re demons?” I asked.

  “Mytaz didn’t carve these statues from a rock; he created them from demons. With a simple touch, he turned them into this.”

  I glanced at her before walking over to study a demon who had one hand on the handle of his sword and the other raised as if he were trying to ward off a blow. I examined his sightless eyes, the horns curving out of his head, and the extended fangs before continuing to a woman, and then the three leporcháins beside her.

  “It only took his touch to do this?” I asked.

  “Yes. He’s most likely where the humans got their legends of Midas and El Dorado. No one can touch him; some thought he was unstoppable. And then, Kobal, me, Corson, and hundreds of others decided to do something about him. He was out of control, and if we didn’t stop him, he was going to turn all of Hell into this.”

  “So, he’s dead?”

  “We never confirmed his death with a body, but during the fight, his section of Hell collapsed. No one has seen or heard from him since. If he didn’t die, he became trapped, and that was good enough for us.” She glanced at the statues and shuddered. “I’m not sure if all these existed before that battle, or if he’s still alive and he’s somehow been collecting more demons.”

  “Are these demons aware of what is going on around them?”

  “I really hope not. I hope… I hope….” Her breath caught as her good hand grasped the wrist of her broken hand. “I hope they’re dead.”

  I did too. I enjoyed watching demons and humans tear each other apart, but if these demons were trapped and aware of the world, I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone.

  It was worse than being imprisoned behind a seal. At least I’d been able to move, and as much as I hated the others, at least they were there to pass the time with, and they understood what I was going through. I’d had Zorn and a faint glimmer of hope that one day we would be free. These poor bastards would only have a shell and their thoughts.

  “Shit,” I breathed and wished I had battered the ones above to pieces. I might have done them a huge favor. “Who is Fiora?”

  Bale didn’t speak for so long that I didn’t think she would answer me. After a few minutes, she finally said, “My little sister.”

  The melancholy in her voice was more than I could stand. For the second time in my life, the impulse to comfort another struck me. Unsure of how to do that, I listened to my instincts and returned to her side. Wrapping my arms around her, I hugged her close. At first, it was a little awkward, but there was something natural about holding Bale.

  For a minute, she remained rigid in my grasp, and then her shoulders slumped and her arms wrapped around to my back. Her fingers dug into my skin as she clung to me. Holding her felt as right as drawing my next breath.

  I lowered my head to hers and turned my mouth to rest it against her ear. Her fiery hair tickled my nose as her scent filled my nostrils and slipped beneath my skin. The feel of her remained ingrained on me from earlier, but her sudden vulnerability let her dig deeper into the fabric of my being.

  She was always so tough that I never would have suspected she would ever need me, but she did, and I couldn’t deny that I needed her too. I hated that she made me more… human in some ways, but I savored having her in my arms.

  This ability to care for another was entirely new for me. Out of all the thousands upon thousands of years I’d been alive, I’d never put another’s needs ahead of my own. With Bale, it was so easy to do so. I wanted her to be happy and safe. I didn’t want her to be scared and upset, and I would do everything I could to keep her protected.

  Fuck.

  I was only supposed to claim my Chosen and bend her to my will; I wasn’t supposed to care for the infuriating woman. However, I was beginning to worry it was too late to stop that from happening.

  Then Bale pressed her good hand against my chest and started to pull away from my embrace. I reluctantly released her. I had to get my head on straight when it came to her, and I couldn’t do that when she was in my arms. She wouldn’t meet my eye before she looked away to stare down the tunnel, and I refused to acknowledge that I missed having her in my arms.

  “If I’ve been d
reaming about this place practically my whole life, then we should assume Mytaz is still alive. My visions have never come to me as dreams before, but this one did, so there must be a reason for it.”

  “You receive visions?”

  “Occasionally and often sporadically. It’s been years since I last had one, if I don’t count my dreams about this place, but I’m a visionary and fire demon.”

  “So, that’s why you can withstand fire but don’t have any of your own.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you think this Mytaz is still alive?”

  “Yes.”

  I glanced up and down the endless corridor of frozen demons. There was no way I was going to end up as one of these things. I’d kill myself before I ever allowed that to happen.

  “If he is, I’ll make sure he doesn’t stay that way,” I said.

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “I’m not becoming one of these things, and I won’t let you be one either. We have to move.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  I walked beside her as we headed deeper into the darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Bale

  I would not let my apprehension of this place and Mytaz get to me; I would not let the discovery of Fiora devastate me. Just because I hadn’t seen her as one of his statues before, didn’t mean I hadn’t known the fate that befell her.

  When she vanished near Mytaz’s cavern, I assumed he’d taken her as he’d become increasingly aggressive about expanding his territory. I’d always known she’d become one of his things, but seeing her in that frozen state rattled me more than discovering Wrath was my Chosen.

  She was my little sister, the one I protected and loved until the day she vanished. Then she became the one I was determined to avenge with Kobal and the one I’d grieved for centuries.

  I refused to let myself consider she was still alive beneath her protective casing. Before going after Mytaz, we were able to get our hands on a statue. We tried to break free the demon inside, but the gold went all the way through, and only dust remained. I chose to believe that once they turned into gold, they perished. The alternative was too disturbing to ponder.