“And behind all these doors?” She looked up and down the room, at the thick metal doors secured with keypads. “How can we get in?”
“Electrical locks are easy enough to influence,” I said. “Take your pick. I don’t know what’s behind any of them, except the one at the end.”
She looked toward the far end of the room and the nondescript metal door there. When I was under Kent’s command, the only way in and out of that room was with his permission. Now? I was far from eager to step foot in it again.
“What’s in there?” Rae said, and I sighed, extending my energy across the room to influence the electricity in the door’s lock and pop it open.
“See for yourself.”
The creak of the door’s hinges was familiar. I could swear it was the only door in the entirety of this house that Kent allowed to squeak. And the smell inside — stagnant, damp, dust, mold. I turned away from the open door, just so I wouldn’t see the familiar flicker of its pale fluorescent bulb.
I used to break that bulb every day until Kent figured out what I was doing. Then he broke my fingers in return.
I didn’t want to be in here. I didn’t want to smell the cold damp concrete, the metallic iron. I didn’t want to hear the hum of the air filtration system through the vents. The walls were solid concrete except for those vents that blew in cold, sterile air. Air that smelled like nothing, air that was as oppressive and stifling as the walls.
“It’s empty,” she said. “It’s just an empty concrete room. It’s cold.”
“Look down.”
I suppose she did, to judge by her sharp intake of breath. I distracted myself with unlocking the other doors, until she called back, with a tremble in her voice, “Leon, did…did he keep you in here?”
I didn’t answer. She wanted a weapon besides me, so I’d damn well find her one. I wrenched open the first door once its lock was disabled, only to find a simple study within: desk, bookshelf, chair. Unhelpful. I turned for the next door —
And found her standing there, blocking my way.
“Leon.” Her voice sounded hurt. Pained. I hated it. I didn’t want her to sound that way. “Did Kent keep you in that room? That’s a binding circle on the ground, isn’t it?”
“So you really can learn magic from Google,” I muttered. It sounded mean, perhaps it was mean. I’d never given a fuck how I sounded until it came to her, until it came to seeing the emotion in those big brown eyes behind her glasses. I tried to step around her, but she got in front of me again.
“Yes, I was kept in there,” I said, sharper than I intended, but sharpness was the better option to pain — to fear. “On and off for a hundred years or so. This was the basement of the old house, before Kent rebuilt it with his fancy block of glass and concrete up there. I used to watch the roots grow through the dirt walls, until Kent poured more concrete and sealed the door, and there was no light, no warmth, nothing.” I glared over her head, back toward that room. I’d spent hours, days, weeks in there when the various generations of Hadleighs had no use for me. Just a tool, tucked away in the dark before they thought of a task for me again. Stuck in that damned tiny room, in that damned tiny circle, staring at the walls until my mind went numb.
It made me sick. It made me want to —
Her arms were around me. She wrapped them tight around my middle, her head against my chest. She sniffed, and squeezed a little tighter.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
My first instinct was to pull away. I didn’t need comfort, I didn’t need her apologies, I didn’t need her feeling sorry for me. I hated pity. And her apologies were empty because it wasn’t she who had locked me down here. For centuries, humans had imprisoned my kind when they could, and run from us when they couldn’t. In return we’d tempted them, hunted them, used them. Humans were selfish and fickle, short-lived opportunists. They were not to be trusted, only good for pleasure.
But her arms were still tight, shaking around me as she sniffled again. Why the hell did this hurt her? Why did she give a damn what had happened to me?
Putting my arms around her in return felt...strange. Warmer than it should have. Softer. The longer she held on, the more I realized I didn’t really want her to let go. My greater instincts were still struggling, pushing, setting off every alarm bell to tell me that allowing myself to linger in this moment was weak and useless.
But this anger, this fury that kept me going, wasn’t for her. None of it was meant for her. I’d built up my walls to protect myself, not to shut her out.
“We don’t have much time.” My voice came out harsh, if only to keep it from being soft. She pulled back from me a little, and hurriedly wiped her eyes. I didn’t truly understand why she’d cry for me, but humans did strange things when they empathized with another.
Odd, to have a human think of my pain.
But it had been her gentle hands that had cleaned my wounds, too.
“Right.” She raised her chin, jaw set tight and determined. “Let’s find something to fuck these bastards up.”
I wanted to hold her again. I didn’t want her to have to fight. I wanted her safe, protected, mine. Instead I watched her open the next door, and her eyes lit up when the light flickered on within.
“Jackpot,” she said, and when I peered in over her shoulder, I quickly saw why.
The black walls within were lined with shelves, covered in artifacts that reeked of age and magic. More shelves were clustered in the center of the room, and there were water-stained crates with dead barnacles accumulated across them, stacked in the corners. Rae’s eyes were wide as she entered and gazed around.
“It smells like the ocean,” she said softly. I nodded.
“These all must have come up from the mine.” I ran my fingers along the cracking spines of several books piled upon one of the shelves. “I remember some of these things. After the mine flooded, and Kent’s grandfather, Morpheus, summoned me, one of the first tasks he gave me was going down into the mine and bringing up whatever I could.”
Back then, I’d had no idea what I had been brought into. It was the first time I’d been summoned in over fifty years, and unlike most of my summoners, Morpheus didn’t make any mistakes. He was careful, calm, calculated. He made every order clear. By all accounts, at first, he’d treated me fine.
Until the God got Its tentacles deeper into his head. Whispered in his ear. Turned his mind from simple curiosity to greed.
“The tunnels are all flooded down there,” I moved along the shelves, covered in so many trinkets I could recall bringing up. “I spent weeks swimming through them, finding this shit, bringing it up. And the longer you’re down there, the louder the God becomes. The more interest It gets. It tries to get in your head.”
Bowls, tools, candles. Books, statues, jewelry. Anything and everything I could get my hands on was kept here from the deepest inner chambers, the ones the miners had broken into by accident. Other people had worshipped the Deep One too, long ago, and it was their artifacts that Morpheus had wanted.
It was these artifacts that I’d feared Kent would figure out how to use, and turn against me.
We reached the far end of the room, where a glass display case held a series of black daggers. Their handles were intricately carved, wrapped in knotted red string, and the closer I got to them, the more certain I was that I couldn’t touch them. They vibrated with an energy powerful enough to turn my stomach, some old magic that had fermented with the years, growing stronger and more vicious until just the sight of those blades sent a shudder up my back.
“Those,” Rae said, “I need one of those.”
The case was locked with a good old-fashioned metal padlock, so it required an old-fashioned method of getting in. I slammed my elbow against the glass, shattering it, and Rae yelped in surprise.
“Jesus Christ, Leon,” she hissed. “You could have warned me!”
I chuckled, stepping back quickly from the case so I wouldn’t have to
be near that unpleasant magical humming. “Take your pick, doll. And don’t call on Christ as if the bastard is going to come anywhere near me.”
She rolled her eyes at me, stared curiously into the shattered case for a moment, then carefully selected a knife from among the glass shards. She pulled it from its sheath, revealing a straight blade black as ink, as was the rope wound around its handle. She brandished it toward me playfully, and looked shocked when I jolted back. To her eyes, it would have looked as if I teleported six feet back.
“Woah.” She stared at the knife, then back at me. “Does this...does this actually scare you?”
“It’s unpleasant,” I grumbled. “There’s old, feral magic in it. Don’t get any ideas — if that thing cut me, it wouldn’t heal quickly. But it would be the same for the Eld.” I grinned. “Keep it close, but away from me. It smells bad.”
“I don’t smell anything.” She frowned in confusion, sniffing at the knife as if her human nostrils could somehow pick up that magical smell. I gave her a tap on the arm.
“Away, Rae. Tuck it away, shit.” She quickly tucked it into the band of her skirt, under her sweater. “We need to get out of here. The Hadleighs can’t possibly be happy that you’ve been out of their sight for so long.”
She nodded enthusiastically, as pleased as a kid who’d been given a piece of candy. She’d gotten what she wanted, but I didn’t feel any better. I didn’t want her to have to use some old knife, I didn’t want this small human fending off monsters. I was more than capable of protecting her myself.
Except I’d locked up my protection behind stipulations and deals, and she was determined to DIY her safety.
“I’d like to see the Eld come for me now,” she said, as we made our way back up the stairwell. I could hear the music pounding, drunk humans laughing and shouting. Too much noise to isolate out any individual conversation, which made me nervous. Even down here, the scent of cigars was strong. Perhaps even stronger than it had been in the bedroom. I hoped that knife was worth it, because lingering here was a risk we really shouldn’t have taken.
Rae reached the door first, and pushed the metal plate to slide the bookshelf open. “I’d like to see them try to get their claws in me and get a face full of — oh.”
Her oh dropped like a stone in my stomach.
Kent Hadleigh sat there, a cigar in his mouth, waiting for us.
Kent didn’t look angry, he didn’t even look surprised. He sat in a thickly-cushioned leather chair, puffing his cigar, the vanilla-mahogany scent of it wafting around the room. His pale gray suit was unbuttoned, as if he’d just settled in for a relaxing evening.
He wasn’t even supposed to be here. The smile he gave me was like ice sliding down my spine. My heart began to thump painfully hard. I glanced back, just to reassure myself of where Leon was: close, just to my side, still as stone.
The ice running down my spine settled solidly in my stomach. My palms began to sweat. The knife I’d stolen was digging into my hip and I was certain the guilt would show all over my face.
“Miss Raelynn, my, my, what a curious little lamb you are,” Kent mused, carefully ashing his cigar in a small stone tray on the table beside him. He must have cameras in here. He must have been watching the whole thing. “And you...pull the mask up, boy.”
Leon didn’t move. His tension was palpable, a physical force emanating from beside me. Kent tsked in disapproval, and spread his hands innocently. “No one’s in trouble here. But considering you both snuck into my private quarters, it’s only polite that I know who you are. Now…” There was a glint, a flash of steel — and Kent had a pistol in his hand. My pounding heart stilled completely, aching in my chest. “The mask, boy. I’m not playing games.”
This time, Leon moved. I didn’t need to look at him to know he’d uncovered his face: Kent’s expression told me everything. For the first time, he did look surprised.
Then angry. So angry that his finger twitched on the gun, and a sound somewhere between a sob and choked gasp was wrenched out of me.
“Demon,” he nodded slowly. “And here I thought you would have left Earth after you nearly killed my son, but no. Still here, still meddling in my affairs.” Leon had tried to kill Jeremiah? For a brief moment, my curiosity tried to override my fear, only for the ominous click of the gun’s hammer cocking back to slam my terror back into place.
“It won’t kill me,” Leon said quickly. My head felt light, and I desperately wanted to lean up against something so I wouldn’t fall. But I felt certain that one wrong move would result in a bullet through my brain. “How many bullets do you have, Kenny boy? Five? Six? Enough to slow me down before I rip you apart?”
Kent’s expression was immoveable, frozen solidly in a state of distaste. Then the gun moved imperceptibly, to be aimed at me.
“Fuck, Mr. Hadleigh, wait —” I held up my hands, flushing hot then cold. I couldn’t die like this. Not here. But Kent wasn’t even looking at me.
“The girl will die from a single bullet,” he said calmly. “Not the most ideal way to make the sacrifice, but dead is dead.”
“Sacrifice,” the word slipped past my lips like a prayer, disbelief and pleading wrapping themselves around it. “I’m...I’m not...not a sacrifice...I’m not…”
“You care for her, don’t you?” Kent chuckled, shaking his head. He was still focused on Leon, and whatever he saw in him seemed to amuse him greatly. “How funny. To think, the demon doesn’t want his toy broken. Had I known you could be controlled so easily, I never would have bothered with all the effort of punishing you with magic. But of course, the toy you want is the one you can’t keep.” He sighed, as if dealing with petulant children, and slowly, his eyes slid back to me. “I understand the inevitable can be shocking, Miss Raelynn. It can be horrifying. And no doubt this demon has been feeding you lies about us. About our God, our purpose. Corrupting you.”
“He’s been protecting me,” I gasp, and dare to step closer to Leon. His arm wrapped around me immediately, pushing me firmly behind him.
“If you kill her,” he growled. “You seal your own death.”
Kent smiled slowly. “Then we are at an impasse. What a twist of fate. The killer becomes the protector. Why?” He chuckled, puffing the cigar as if it was all just a grand game. “Is her cunt so enjoyable? You could still use it once she’s dead. What a thought: you, down there in the mine, rutting against her corpse like a rabid dog.”
I felt sick. Leon’s claws were distending, and the heat rolling off him was almost too much to bear. The door was so close, only a few steps away.
A few steps and a gun.
“All in due time,” Kent said, still chuckling at his own little inside joke. “Today, I’m afraid, is not the day you die, Miss Raelynn, although my children did think they would be successful.” He tapped at the cigar. “Impatient, those two. Always competing. A healthy coping mechanism, in my opinion. They are facing the inevitable too, you know. Three lives once spared is now three souls that must be given. Our God is clear. A Lawson, a Kynes, a Hadleigh. Three lives, three souls.”
“You’re going to sacrifice one of your own children,” I whispered, realization dawning. Kent solemnly nodded and took another puff on his cigar. As if it was nothing. As if it was normal.
“My father prepared me for such an eventuality,” he said. “I’m sorry yours didn’t do the same for you. Your father, paranoid as he was, always preferred to keep his beliefs firmly planted in logic. Never allowed himself to think there was a bigger picture. But there are things that defy logic. Things that defy all human knowledge, all science.” He stubbed out his cigar, and stood without lowering the pistol. Leon jerked me to the side, closer to the door, and Kent held up his hand. “I’m not through here. We may be at an impasse, demon, but I still have something to say to Miss Raelynn. Something she deserves to hear.”
“She doesn’t deserve your lying words,” Leon snarled. But the gun was still cocked, still aimed, and not even a demon could sto
p a bullet.
“My children tell me you have an interest in the occult,” Kent said. “A fascination for it. So I knew — I knew — you would see the wisdom your father refused.”
“What wisdom?” My voice felt so hollow, my body like a shell. As if I could vacate it and leave this nightmare, go back to a world where things were so much less dangerous and made so much more sense. My father would have laughed at all of this, shaken his head, called it nonsense. He would have come up with a perfectly logical explanation for everything.
Except there were no logical explanations here. Logic had flown out the fucking window, crashed into a telephone pole, and gone down in a flaming blaze.
“These sacrifices are not in greed, Miss Raelynn,” Kent said. “They are merely a necessity. It is natural for humans to resist their own death, to fixate upon survival, but this is much bigger than merely three lives. The Deep One is waking up.”
Raelynn.
I jumped. It was as if the name had been whispered right in my ear, as if the syllables slid over the interior of my skull and nestled against my brain. Kent was nodding.
“You hear Its call. All those meant for It do. For years my children have dreamed of It. They understand that, when one of them is eventually chosen, their fate will help procure mercy for all of humanity.”
“Bullshit,” Leon hissed, but Kent was unperturbed.
“The God will wake whether we help It or not. And when It does, when It reclaims dominion over Earth, It will know that we humans keep our promises. That we are good servants. That we are worthy of mercy.”
“Ask any Archdemon what it was like to live in a world ruled by the Old Gods,” Leon snapped. “Every one of them will tell you they are not beings capable of mercy.”
“The demon lies. How typical.” Finally, slowly, Kent was lowering the gun. “You will not go to the Deep One tonight, Raelynn. But soon. Soon you will, and I ask only that you consider my words: your sacrifice secures mercy for all people. The world is changing. The great awakening is about to occur. And there will be pain, and bloodshed, but in the end...there will be peace. Peace through your sacrifice. So when you come to die, Miss Raelynn, know that you were meant for it.”
Her Soul to Take (Souls Trilogy) Page 26
