Hellforged

“The cavern we want is on a lower level.” Mab started across the cavern. “Be careful on the wet slate. It’s slippery.”

I motioned to Kane to follow her. I wasn’t going to let Pryce sneak up behind us and attack him. He paused, like he was having the same thought about me, then turned and followed Mab. She was already way ahead of us.

Half a dozen steps later, Kane stopped so suddenly that I bumped into him. “What the hell—?” He brushed at the back of his head.

“What’s wrong?”

“Is something on me? It feels like something’s pulling my hair.” He wiggled his shoulders and brushed at his head again.

It must be a demon, something unmaterialized. Kane could sense its presence but not its body.

I drew my dagger and started to open to the demon plane. Then I remembered Mab’s warning and how I’d gotten stuck before. What now? I couldn’t kill the thing, whatever it was, if I couldn’t see it.

But an unmaterialized demon can’t attack, either. Just cause a creepy feeling, like ice-coated cobwebs grazing your skin.

“Keep going,” I said. “As long as it doesn’t materialize—”

The demon chose that moment to take form. It was an imp, a foot tall with slimy green skin. Both clawed hands clutched Kane’s hair. The imp reared back and opened its mouth wide, showing its jagged teeth, preparing to bite a chunk out of Kane’s neck.

“Hold still!” I shouted and stabbed the imp through its throat. The demon collapsed, and I plucked its body from Kane’s shoulders.

“An imp,” I said, showing him the materialized corpse. “Pryce must have conjured them.” I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Mab!” I shouted. “Imps!”

Before the echo faded, a chorus of insane giggles ricocheted around the cavern. We looked up. The ceiling was lit with a strange glow, the light from dozens of pairs of yellow imp eyes. Like bats, they crouched upside down, clinging to the bare rock.

A hailstorm of imps dropped on us.

Three landed on me—on my head, shoulders, and back—and two more bit at my ankles. Imps are easy to kill, just a nick from a bronze blade does the job, but there were dozens of them pinching, pulling, biting, and scratching. I’d kill one, and two more moved in to attack.

The imp on my head stabbed at my face with its claws, trying to gouge my eyes. I slashed its arm, yanked it off me, and flung it away. Kane was getting swarmed worse than I was. Five imps grasped his legs, another scrambled up his back. Two sat on his head, clawing his face, and he had one on each shoulder and another weighing down the arm holding his blade. I nailed that one with a throwing knife, freeing his hand. He pulled an imp off his head and slammed it to the ground. He held it in place with his foot and drove his blade into the center of its chest.

“You don’t have to do that,” I yelled. “Just cut them—if you break the skin, the bronze does the rest.”

I didn’t see his response, because another imp launched itself at me, landing square on my face and hugging my head. A face full of imp belly—yuck. I slashed my knife across its back and went to work on the others, never-ending waves of them. It was dirty, tiring work. And it was slowing us down—which was exactly what Pryce wanted.

To my right, Kane had got the hang of it. Dead imps piled up to his shins. He twisted to get at one that hung from his back, stumbled, and fell. A dozen imps swarmed over him, hiding him from view. His arm burst from the heap, waving the knife wildly. I waded through imp corpses to help. I slashed three with one stroke and swept them away. I skewered another and hurled it into the darkness. I grabbed Kane’s arm and pulled him to his feet. A new wave attacked. We stood back to back and resumed our slice-and-dice routine.

Eventually, the attack subsided. The ranks thinned; the imps came more slowly. When the last imp was toast, its dead comrades began to dematerialize, melting into the ether. Soon, the stone floor was clear.

“Are you okay?” I asked. Kane breathed hard, his clothes ripped and speckled with blood. A nasty-looking gash bled on his cheek. As I watched, the blood stopped flowing and the cut’s edges crept toward each other. Even in human form, werewolves healed fast.

“Fine,” he said. “You?”

My clothes weren’t in any better shape than Kane’s, but I was more or less unhurt. But the imps had cost us time; we’d lost ten minutes. I called to Mab, but she didn’t answer. In the fight, I’d lost track of the direction she’d taken.

We explored the cavern’s perimeter. Besides the way we’d come, which was easy to identify from the pile of slate at its entrance, there were two other tunnels. Nothing indicated which one Mab had taken. I called down one, then the other. No answer.

“We need to split up,” I said. “You take this tunnel,” I indicated the tunnel to our right, which proceeded more or less levelly, “and I’ll take the other one.” The second tunnel, across the cavern, sloped steeply downward. Mab had said we needed to go deeper into the mine to find the cavern with the Morfran.

Kane opened his mouth like he was going to object. Yeah, yeah—he never let anyone tell him what to do. Well, neither did I, and we’d already lost too much time.

“We have no choice,” I said, my voice sharp. “One of us has to find Mab.”

His gray eyes glowed almost silver in the darkness. “I agree. I was just going to say good luck.” He pulled me to him and kissed me hard, a deep, lingering kiss.

I put my arms around him and pressed my cheek against his chest, letting his scent of moonlit forest overpower the smell of cold, dead rock. For a minute, I held him. A minute we didn’t have, but it was one I needed.

I let go. Kane squeezed my hand and ducked into the right tunnel. I watched his light bob along the walls. Then I turned and hurried across the cavern. I plunged into the tunnel and started down the steep incline.

28

I HALF-RAN, HALF-SLID DOWN THE TUNNEL. THE MINE FELT darker as the stone walls crowded in. Again, I couldn’t stand up straight, and with my head bent forward the slope felt even steeper—I kept expecting to pitch forward and somersault to the bottom. To make things worse, each step loosed a small landslide of rocks. I couldn’t have made more noise leading a brass band.

Since it was obvious I was coming, I called out Mab’s name every few feet. If she answered, I’d know I’d chosen the right tunnel.

Instead of Mab’s voice, a booming tone reverberated through the mine, like someone had struck a huge gong. The noise bounced and echoed, until it seemed to come from inside my own head. I called Mab again.

One word came back, short and sharp: “Here!”

I was almost at the bottom of the incline. My headlamp showed the floor flatten out ahead. Beyond was blackness.

Another gong sounded. One more strike, and the Morfran would be free. I drew my baselard and scrambled down the last of the incline. The floor leveled out and the walls fell away as I stepped into the cavern.

The cavern seemed immense in contrast with the tight passage I’d just left, though it was impossible to see more than a yard or two in any direction. I listened. There was a sound of rushing water—a river? A waterfall? Scuffling noises came from my right. I looked that way but couldn’t see anything. Where was Mab’s light?

A blade sliced the air with a whoosh. Metal crashed into metal, punctuated by grunts of effort. I moved toward the noise, my headlamp cutting through the darkness like a lighthouse beam through fog. After I’d taken a dozen steps, the light splashed across Mab and Pryce. They faced each other, swords drawn. Mab thrust; Pryce counter-parried. Mab moved in with a doublé attack, but he evaded her.

We had him. Pryce couldn’t fight us both at the same time. I rushed in to help.

Pryce must have heard me coming. He turned and gestured at me. It looked like he threw something, so I ducked. Mab saw his distraction and lunged. But I couldn’t see whether she hit him, because my headlamp went out.

The darkness, its suddenness and absoluteness, froze me in place. I fumbled for the flashlight on my belt. It would be awkward to fight and hold a flashlight at the same time, but I’d have to manage. I clicked the switch. Nothing happened. I tried again, but no light pierced the cavern’s darkness. Flick, flick. I moved the switch back and forth, then shook the damn thing.

I was hundreds of feet underground, and I had no light.

I pushed down the urge to scream. This was no time to panic. But how was I supposed to fight in this endless, crushing, utter darkness? Pryce was one of the Meibion Avagddu, the Sons of Utter Darkness. He could probably see in here. In fact, he must feel right at home.

Blade hit blade, slid off, hit again. Feet shuffled, grunts sounded. The fight moved deeper into the cavern. It was eerie, hearing hard fighting when I could see nothing. I crept toward the sounds. My sword was still drawn, but I might as well have left it in the car. What use was it if I couldn’t see? I didn’t want to aim for Pryce and hit Mab instead. In the darkness, Pryce cursed. I hoped Mab had gotten a good hit.

Mab had to be fighting in the demon plane. It was the only way she could expand her senses enough to see in the dark. Mab had no demon mark, no bond to a Hellion, so there was no reason for her to hold back. For me, though, it was too risky. I was too close to the place where demons had been born to step into their world.

Then Mab gasped and cried out. Pryce laughed. There was a loud groan—a sound laced with pain. Was it Mab? I couldn’t be sure. Then Pryce laughed again, and nothing else mattered. Mab needed me. I took a deep breath and opened my senses to the demon plane.

In a blaze of agony, my demon mark ignited. I screamed. A flare shot from my arm, lighting the cavern like a torch. Beyond it, a dim gray light—the eternal twilight of Uffern—spread feebly throughout the cavern. Cawing, muted but frantic, called from the slate. Mab and Pryce stood thirty feet ahead. They’d paused their fight. Both stood and stared at me.

Mab looked like an avenging angel, fifty years younger and shining with the same silver radiance that lit up Hellforged’s obsidian blade. Pryce showed his double form. He still looked like the tall, elegant, black-haired human who called himself my cousin, but his demon self hulked behind like a nightmare shadow. Cysgod was bigger and uglier than in the pub; it towered over Mab by a dozen feet. The demon held a sword, longer than I was tall. Fire reeled in and out of its mouth as it breathed. It laughed, and flames shot toward me. 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">