I snorted softly. “Good-bye, Lucian. Talk to you soon.”
“Hopefully, sooner than you—”
I cut him off in midsentence, tossed the phone and purse over onto the passenger seat, then climbed into the car.
And only then realized I wasn’t alone in the car.
Chapter 10
For a moment, fear froze me to the spot. And that’s all it took for the Ania to wrap tightly around me and prevent movement. Amaya was screaming inside my head, her fury burning through my body and her flames flickering across my skin like angry fireflies.
“Azriel!” I screamed, physically and mentally, even as the Ania ripped me free of the seat and the car. I felt the heat of his approach. Then power exploded and there was no Azriel, no world, only darkness and an uneasy sense of movement.
It stopped with a suddenness that made my stomach lurch, and then I was dropped rather unceremoniously onto a surface that was cool and dry. Dirt, I thought, spitting it out of my mouth in between groans. I drew Amaya, then rolled onto my back. Her purple light spread across the black, parting it like glue. Rock surrounded me—above and around. I was in a cavern of some sort, and there didn’t seem to be either an entry or an exit point. My tomb—for that’s what it suddenly felt like—was about four feet wide and about the same height. I could kneel, but I couldn’t fully stand. But a breeze stirred sluggishly across my skin, which meant there was a link to the surface here somewhere, even if the air had a stale, somewhat old scent. And that in itself suggested not only that there wasn’t a whole lot of fresh air getting down here, but also that I was deep underground.
And if I was, it meant Azriel wouldn’t find me. My being underground restricted our chi connection, and the deeper I was, the worse it became—although apparently such restrictions didn’t apply when reapers collected the souls of miners and others who died underground. Not that I was making any immediate plans for him to find me that way. What the Raziq planned was anyone’s guess.
I glanced up at the ceiling again, and this time noticed a faint, multicolored shimmer that reminded me of oil on water. I swore softly. That shimmer was a field of magic designed to prevent me from reaching for the Aedh—something I’d discovered the hard way the last time the Raziq trapped me underground. I guess I had to be thankful that at least this time their prison wasn’t a sewer.
I sat up. As I did so, an oddly dark surge of electricity ran across my skin, making the little hairs at the back of my neck stand on end and my soul shiver away in fear.
The Aedh were near.
Fear slammed into my heart and for several seconds I struggled to breathe. I closed my eyes and battled for calm. I couldn’t give in to fear—not when I needed all my wits about me to survive whatever it was the Raziq had planned. Although what good mere survival would do me in this place deep underground I had no idea. It wasn’t like I could run anywhere, even if I’d wanted to. With that shimmer in place, my tomb had no exit point.
“I know you’re there.” My voice was croaky with fear but sounded oddly flat in the thick atmosphere of the little cavern.
“Sheathe your weapon. It will do you no good.”
The disembodied male voice held no threat, but it nevertheless sent a chill down my spine. This was the Raziq I’d spoken to last time—the Raziq that had invaded my brain and made it seem like every part of me was being torn apart.
I licked my lips and somehow said, “Then you shouldn’t be worried about me holding it.”
The lilac-lit shadows showed no hint of them—not surprising, I suppose. It wasn’t like they’d shown a propensity to reveal themselves in our previous encounters.
“Why do human always have to make things difficult for themselves?” he asked, almost philosophically.
I raised Amaya. The sword howled inside my head, a scream that was part anger, part frustration. Her fire spat through the thick darkness and, just for a moment, I saw him—or rather, saw the shimmer of his energy, because he was little more than a pulsating mass of quicksilver. Then it disappeared and all that was left was a sensation of power—power that was amplifying, growing stronger, burning my skin as it skimmed around my arms and snapped tight.
The minute it did, it felt like my arms were on fire. They burned and burned, until it felt like flesh and muscle were being peeled away layer by layer, until all that was left was bone. Bone that fissured and cracked as the flames continued to eat down. I screamed until my throat was raw and no sound came out, but somehow, through it all, I still managed to hold on to Amaya. Energy flowed from her, fueling my body, feeding my will to resist.
But the flames grew stronger, and one by one my fingers began to shatter, until there was nothing left to hold the sword. She fell to the floor, her scream an echo of my own. The power eating my flesh slithered from my arms and wrapped around her. She slid across the floor, well away from both me and the Aedh, and was suddenly silenced. It made the thick atmosphere within the tomb even more frightening and, for a moment, I feared the worst. Then I noticed firefly flickers down her bright edges. They might have silenced the spirit within the sword, but they certainly hadn’t killed her.
Relief surged, but for several minutes I could do nothing more than rock back and forth, nursing the broken remnants of my arms as tears streamed down my face. Eventually, the pain eased, and when I finally gathered the courage to look down at my hands, they were whole and unburned.
It had been an illusion. A painful, all-too-real illusion.
“Bastards,” I said, scrubbing an arm across my tearstained face and silently rejoicing for the fact that I could do it.
“We desire your help,” the disembodied voice said, “and we will get it, whether you wish to cooperate with us or not.”
“You can guess which end of that spectrum I’m going to fall on,” I said resolutely and no doubt stupidly.
But I just couldn’t give these beings what they wanted, because, in the end, what they wanted was the permanent closure of the portals to heaven and hell. And that, in turn, meant no souls ever being reborn. Not only would the world become filled with the ghosts of those unable to move on, but many of the babies born would be without their assigned souls, and therefore they would be little more than lifeless flesh.
“You would be wise to reconsider your options,” he said. “It would be easier for you if you willingly comply.”
I snorted softly. “Since when has my welfare been a consideration in any of our dealings?”
“It isn’t. It is merely practicality.”
“Well, you can take your practicality and shove it where the sun don’t shine.”
“You do not wish to acquiesce?” His energy began to build again, a maelstrom of power that rumbled like distant thunder across the outer edges of my senses.
Amaya flared brighter, her flames a furious swirl. I could’ve sworn that just for a moment she moved.
I hugged my arms a little tighter. I knew what was coming. Knew, and feared it. And part of me needed to delay it for as long as I could. Maybe if I did, Azriel might find me. Save me.
A false hope was better than no hope.
I swallowed heavily and said, “What is it you want?”
He paused, as if that was a question he hadn’t been expecting. “We wish your help in finding your father.”
“That’s not exactly true. You want the keys.”
“That is our ultimate objective, yes. To achieve it, we need Hieu.”
“My father might know the general direction of the keys, but he can’t actually find them for you. Which means you need me, as well.”
And that meant that no matter what they did to me, they couldn’t actually kill me. It wasn’t much comfort, however—not given what they’d already done.
“Your father knows the location of the keys, so actually finding them should not present a problem for him. You are not so much of a concern.”
“I beg to differ—if he could find the keys himself, he would have done so by now. But only one of his flesh can find the keys and, thanks to you guys, he can no longer take on flesh. So, logically, that leaves me.”
Of course, it was a statement that presumed he was actually telling the truth when it came to the keys, and I had a vague suspicion he wasn’t. Not entirely, anyway.
“What has been undone can be redone,” the disembodied voice said evenly. “That is not a concern.”
I was betting it was, because otherwise I’d have been dead. “You held my father prisoner, so why didn’t you force him to help you then?”
A slight shimmer of energy snagged my attention, simply because it wasn’t the darker energy belonging to the Raziq. I frowned, my gaze scanning the little cavern before coming to rest on Amaya.
She was definitely closer.
I had no idea how the hell she was achieving it, but I wasn’t about to question it. Having her in my hand probably wouldn’t make any difference to my situation, considering how the Raziq had divested me of her in the first place, but my fingers still itched to wrap around her hilt. She gave me strength and made me feel safer—something I’d never thought possible when Azriel had first produced her.
“That,” the Raziq said, his voice no different and yet suddenly so filled with menace, “is knowledge you do not require.”
I licked my lips and said, “How am I supposed to find my father when he’s always been the one who’s contacted me?”
“We will give you a device that will notify us when you are in his presence.”
“Exactly what sort of device?” Amaya was almost within reach of a sideways lunge. I shivered and resisted the temptation to move. “And how does it work?”
“It is attuned to Hieu’s life force and will react when he is near. We will be notified.”
“My father is smart enough to realize what the device is the minute he sees it.” She was close, so close. My fingers twitched and tension began to wind through my muscles. “He’ll get the hell out of there before you lot ever make an appearance.”