Hellforged

“Don’t be long. Jenkins is bringing round the Land Rover.”

I went back to Mab’s weapons cabinet and chose a dagger, along with a regular ankle sheath, one without the strap over the top. When I was ready, I hurried toward the front door, almost colliding with Rose in the front hall.

“Oh, Miss Vicky. I was afraid you’d already gone. Here.” She thrust a basket at me. “It’s sandwiches and things. In case you get hungry.”

I hugged Rose and took the basket. “Come back safe,” she said.

If only she knew.

I walked outside, armed to the teeth and toting a picnic basket. Jenkins pulled the Land Rover into the coaching yard. The big vehicle crunched over the gravel and came to a stop at the front steps. Jenkins started to get out to do his chauffeur thing, but Mab marched to the car and got in the front passenger side. I was opening the door behind her when I noticed a movement in the driveway.

I shaded my eyes against the afternoon sun. A blue Mercedes, dust rising from its tires, drove into the coaching yard and stopped beside the Land Rover.

The driver’s door opened, and a man got out. A man with silver hair, broad shoulders, and a wolfish grin.

Kane.

Kane was here. In Wales. At Maenllyd.

Not a mirage, not a daydream—he was really there. He opened his arms. I rushed around the Land Rover, around the Mercedes, and flew into his arms.

He was warm and solid, and he smelled like a moonlit winter forest with distant wood smoke on the breeze. We clutched each other. I tilted my head back to see his face, and his mouth met mine in a long, deep kiss.

Kane. Oh, God, the taste of him. I’d almost forgotten.

A car door opened, then closed. “Vicky, we must go.” Mab’s voice pushed its way between us. I didn’t want to step back. To hold Kane, to breathe him in, to press my lips against his—those things were to be alive. To break apart would be to return to my new world, the world of death. I lingered another moment, just one more. Then I moved away.

He let me go. But he caught my hand and held it.

My aunt stood beside the Land Rover, her door open. “Mab,” I said, “this is Kane. I’ve told you about him.” I was so glad I actually had.

Kane gave her a dazzling smile, but she responded with a dismissive nod. “Delighted. Please go inside and tell Rose I said to make up the blue bedroom for you. I’m sorry I can’t give you a warmer welcome, but we’re dealing with a matter of extreme urgency and we must leave at once.”

Kane took in Mab’s grim expression, the arsenal of weapons we both wore. “Where are you going?”

“To make sure something nasty doesn’t escape from a slate mine.” I squeezed Kane’s hand and reluctantly let it go. I went back to the Land Rover and opened the door.

“I’ll come with you.”

Mab pursed her lips, looking him over. “All right. You might prove useful.”

Kane popped open the Mercedes’ trunk and removed a suitcase. “I’m not exactly dressed for a fight”—no kidding, he wore a black mohair coat and steel-gray suit—“so I’ll bring this along.” He opened the back of the Land Rover and hoisted his suitcase inside. Then he got in the door opposite mine.

I slid across the seat, until the side of my leg touched his. He took my hand again.

Jenkins put the car in gear and steered down the driveway. I twisted in my seat to take one last look at Maenllyd. Home. I was leaving it behind, riding toward my own death.

When we rounded the driveway’s curve, I turned to Kane. “What are you doing here?” There was no way he’d leave his Supreme Court case to zip across the Atlantic for a visit.

“You first,” he said. “Fill me in on what’s happening.”

As I spoke, I rested against his shoulder. It gave me strength. I told him about Pryce and the Morfran, concentrating on the essentials. How the Morfran had killed three zombies in Boston. How the Destroyer had pushed its way into my dreams to choose the Morfran’s victims. How my so-called cousin had a crazy scheme for letting demons overrun the world by freeing as much Morfran as he could, and how I’d been reading The Book of Utter Darkness to try to anticipate his moves. I left out Pryce’s tests and his stupid prophecy. Since there was no way I’d ever be mommy to his demon brood, there was no point in bringing it up.

I also left out how the book had pushed death into my mind. The word still echoed through my thoughts in sandpapery whispers. No one—not Mab, not Kane—would be distracted from our mission by worrying about me.

For two hours, we drove in near silence. I wanted to know why Kane had walked away from his court case and come to Wales, but he insisted it could wait. He squeezed my hand when he said it, meaning he wanted to tell me when we were alone. I put it out of my mind for now. I’d find out later. If there was a later.

And if there wasn’t, it wouldn’t matter.

I stared out the window, watching the fields and wooded hills give way to steeper slopes and heath-covered ridges as we climbed toward the mountains. I’d miss the breathtaking Welsh landscape. I’d miss Boston, too—the zombie-thronged streets of Deadtown, the grittiness of the New Combat Zone. Kane’s presence reminded me of everything else I’d miss. He sat quietly beside me, but I could feel his coiled power: in his muscular thigh, in the large hand that hid my own. I thought about the last time we’d made love, months ago—why hadn’t we managed it more often? It was too late now. And it was too late to patch things up with Gwen. I’d never watch her kids grow up. I’d never know if Maria would become a shapeshifter like me.

I’d miss Juliet and her dumb Shakespeare obsession. I’d even miss Tina, although she’d driven me crazy every second I’d known her.

I probably shouldn’t be thinking about Daniel as I held hands with Kane, but I’d miss him, too—his blue eyes, boyish smile, his slightly-too-long blond curls. He’d glimpsed something in me, something good, I’d never quite seen myself.

But Kane. I hadn’t realized how much I missed him until he got out of that car. Why had he arrived now, when I needed him beside me? Maybe it was destiny. The thought made me smile.

Then I put all thoughts aside to prepare for the task at hand. I closed my eyes and worked on getting centered. I wasn’t worried about purity anymore. Instead, I dug down to find the core of my being, the calm place where all was still, the place from which I could meet my destiny.

27

“TURN HERE, JENKINS.”

I opened my eyes at the sound of Mab’s voice.

The Land Rover slowed and made a cautious right turn, then bumped along a rutted dirt road. We were in the mountains now, traveling along a narrow valley hemmed in by steep, rocky slopes. It was late afternoon, nearly twilight. The Land Rover crept down the overgrown track. We’d make faster progress if we got out and walked, but I didn’t say that. I was trying to hang on to the calm, centered place I’d found on the drive.

For ten minutes, we jounced along at a snail’s pace. Then slabs of slate, irregular in shape and standing upright like gravestones, appeared on both sides of the road.

Mab turned around in her seat. “Slate fences were once common in this part of Wales,” she told Kane, as though narrating a pleasure tour of the countryside. This fence was in bad shape, some of the stones had split, and others tilted at drunken angles or lay on the ground. We were getting close to the mine.

The track curved along the shore of a lake, gray under the leaden sky. In the dim light, the lake seemed to absorb whatever light there was, giving nothing back. Like Pryce’s eyes.

Beyond the lake rose steep, gray-and-brown hills. A place devoid of color or sparkle, it reminded me of Limbo, the world between the worlds.

The track turned away from the lake, and we came to a flat, empty, gravel-filled yard. Crumbling stone buildings—roofless, windowless, walls collapsing—stood in clusters and climbed the surrounding hills. The ruins gave the place an air of failure, of activity long stilled, of silence that stretched endlessly past the final echo. It was a place where the dead called to the dead in an unspoken language the living could not perceive. I wondered if they were calling to me.

I shook off the feeling. Centered—I had to stay centered. As though he shared my unease, Kane put his arm around me and pulled me close.

On the west side of the yard, a hill ascended, its slope covered with piles of loose rock, waste from the mine. A short, square doorway led into the mine itself. I sat up straighter. The scene looked exactly like the illustration in The Book of Utter Darkness.

Jenkins stopped by the mine’s entrance. The sun dropped behind the hill, casting shadows over us, over everything. It felt like we’d reached the end of the world.

We climbed out of the Land Rover. “No other cars,” Kane pointed out. “Looks like we got here first.”

“He’s here,” Mab said. She gestured at the entrance. A twisted metal gate and broken padlock lay on the ground. “Pryce can travel through the demon plane. He’s been here for hours, I’d wager. But he cannot release the Morfran until dark.” She glanced at the hill that now hid the sun. “We must hurry.”

Pryce was here. I’d expected that, of course, but the thought still prickled the back of my neck. Those dead eyes could be watching us right now from Uffern. At any moment, he could attack out of nowhere. Maybe I could locate him. I opened to the demon plane.

Uffern was stiflingly hot, as though invisible fires burned all around, consuming all the oxygen. The landscape was even more gloomy and desolate than it looked to human eyes, like a dirty veil had been pulled across the scene. I stretched out my senses, searching for Pryce. Mab was right; he’d beaten us here. Cysgod’s sulfur-and-brimstone stench hung in the air. From deep inside the mine came the muffled sound of frantic cawing, the Morfran trapped in the slate. But I couldn’t find Pryce.

I pulled my senses back—or tried to. Nothing changed. The filth, the stink, the heat, and sounds of the demon plane persisted. It was like being trapped in a dream where you try to shut your eyes to some horror but can’t stop seeing it. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">