“Fuck me!” he said vehemently. He swept the sweaty strands of hair from his forehead with hands as bloody as mine and looked around. “Where are we?”
“I have no idea. And not in a million years.”
“I’ll remind you of those words the next time we make out—” Jak stopped, and his eyes widened. “What the hell are those?”
“I don’t know.”
It was somewhat absently said as I studied the two pillars. They were about six feet tall and stood the width of a body apart from each other, so that they formed an odd sort of doorway that seemed to go nowhere. Though they were mostly gray in color, their surface was littered with quartz that Amaya’s flames sparked to life, sending rainbow-colored flurries skating across the earthen walls. There were markings and weird symbols etched into each pillar, but it was no language I’d ever seen, and it felt ancient. No, not just ancient—powerful.
I stepped forward cautiously. Energy caressed my skin, similar to the magic I’d felt briefly when I touched the door handle. I swept Amaya’s light across the floor. While it was mainly dirt, there was a series of wide, flat stones that formed a circle around the pillars. While there was no quartz within these stones for Amaya’s flames to catch, there was writing. This time I recognized the language, even if I didn’t entirely understand the spell. They were runes, meaning the stones were some sort of protection circle.
“You think it’s a gateway of some kind?” Jak said.
“Of some kind.” I walked around the pillars, making sure to keep close to the walls and well away from the runes. “Be careful where you step, Jak.”
“I may be a skeptic when it comes to many things magic, but even I can sense the wrongness in whatever is written on those stones.”
And that’s precisely what it was. A wrongness. The magic in this place wasn’t dark, it wasn’t evil—it was just wrong.
Like the man without a face, I thought absently, though it was doubtful they were in any way connected.
Each rune in the circle was a little bit different from its neighbor, except at the north and south points, where a set of six identical ones appeared. Exit and entry points, perhaps?
I stopped when I reached the tunnel entrance again and studied the walls themselves. There appeared to be another exit to the left, but on closer inspection, it proved to be little more than a niche. Whoever had built this place obviously used it for storage, because it was filled with an odd assortment of things—including a shovel, a crowbar, a hammer, and various-sized jars of nails. The sort of stuff you’d need if you wanted to repair a floor or bury a body.
I shivered, and hoped like hell we got out of this damn hole long before we had to worry about either of those things.
“Now what?” Jak crossed his arms and stared at the pillars thoughtfully. “Do we attempt to breach the magic?”
“Nope, we use our ‘ring a friend’ option.” I dug the phone out of my pocket, hit the vid-button, then called Ilianna.
“You found something?” she said by way of hello.
“Yeah. I need you to tell me what it is. Hang on and I’ll show you.” I turned the phone around and did a slow sweep of the cavern.
“Fuck,” she said. “That’s some heavy-duty magic they have happening there.”
“But what sort of magic?”
“I have no idea what the script on the pillars is, but it’s obviously some form of gateway.”
“To heaven, hell, or somewhere in between?”
“I’d guess in between, if that’s where earth falls in that little list.”
I supposed that was something. At the very least, it meant we didn’t have the immediate worry of hellhounds making a sudden appearance. I walked around to the north point. “Does this signify an exit or entrance?”
“The pattern the stones are placed in suggest exit. The entrance should be the other side.”
“How can identical rocks form a pattern?” I walked around to the other side.
“They’re not identical to the trained eye.”
I shoved the phone down so she could see the stones, and she added, “Yep, that’s it.”
“And is there anything in these runes that would stop Jak and me leaving via this gate?”
“Other than the fact that it would be sheer stupidity, you mean?”
I grinned. “Yeah, other than that.”
“Um, Ris—” Jak said.
I made a “quiet” motion with my hand as Ilianna said, “I honestly don’t know.” She hesitated. “The runes shouldn’t offer a problem, but as I said, I can’t read the script on the pillars so I really have no idea just what might happen or even how to activate them.”
“Ris—” Jak intervened again.
“What?” I said, looking up in exasperation.
He waved a hand at the pillars. Light shimmered between them, as if it were a mirror catching the first sickly rays of the day.
“Oh, fuck,” I said. “The pillars just activated.”
“Then get the hell out of there!”
“Love to, but we’re stuck underground in a fucking cavern. Call you back.”
“Wait—”
I didn’t. I turned the phone off and met Jak’s gaze grimly.
“I can’t go back into that tunnel,” he said. “It’s too tight for any sort of speed. Niche?”
“Niche,” I agreed. “And let’s hope whoever—or whatever—is coming through that gate has neither good sight nor a strong sense of smell.”
“Amen to that,” Jak muttered, and lunged for the niche.
I squeezed in beside him, and watched as light continued to pulse and swirl between the pillars. Its color was a sickly green—the same color that now glowed within the runes. Amaya screamed, a battle cry that was audible both in my head and in the cavern.
Fuck, flame out and be quiet, I ordered fiercely.
No. Fight what comes.
Not yet. Flame out, Amaya.
Should fight. It was all but a snarl, but her light died. I wished I could say the same about her fierce screaming, but at least it was only inside my head.
The sickly light of the pillars spread tendrils across the darkness, lifting the shadows in some sections of the cavern but casting others into deeper darkness. Our niche fell between the two. Whatever was coming through that gateway had only to glance our way and we were gone.
Then, suddenly, the light stopped pulsing and a shadow stepped through. It was a man—a tall man, with broad shoulders and dark hair. As he strode toward the exit, the light between the pillars died, leaving only the sickly glow of the runes to lift the sudden darkness. It wasn’t enough, and the stranger became little more than a shadow, hinted at but not fully fleshed out.
He paused at the north point of the circle and waved his hand over them. The light in the six runes died and he strode toward the tunnel, quickly disappearing. Oddly enough, though he’d appeared taller than Jak when he’d first come into view, I had no sense that he was in any way restricted by the tight confines of the tunnel. Maybe it was just the weird light that had made him seem taller.
As the sounds of his steps faded, Jak bent closer, his breath warm against my left ear as he murmured, “Now what?”
“We wait.”
“But if he came through those pillars, why can’t we use them to exit?”
“Because he’ll sense the magic kicking in and will either give chase or send something after us.”
“Either option is better than getting caught in this damn niche.”
“Not when we have no idea if the pillars are both exit and entry. For all I know, the exit point here is nothing more than a ruse. It could be what I sensed down at the other end of the tunnel.”
“But Ilianna said—”
“That she didn’t understand the entire spell. It won’t hurt to wait, Jak.”
“It just might if that man comes back and sees us,” he muttered. “Just because I have a knife doesn’t mean I can use it.”
“Then it’s a good thing I can use the sword, isn’t it?” I all but snapped.
“Yeah, I guess it is.” His free hand slipped down my back and came to rest on my butt. “You have no idea how exciting I find that.”
Actually I did, given how close we were standing. But then, he was a werewolf, and danger was an aphrodisiac to most wolves, even if they didn’t actively seek it out. I grabbed his hand and shoved it away. “Behave.”
He chuckled softly, but otherwise did as bid. I flared my nostrils and sifted through surrounding scents, trying to get some idea of the man who’d come through the gate. But no matter how hard I tried, I could neither smell nor hear him. Maybe there was an exit at the other end of the tunnel. Maybe he’d done little more than check what his trap had caught and then moved on-
A gruff voice cut the thought short. “Look, I’m telling you, there’s no one here.”
It was hard to tell just how close he was because his words seemed to echo in the still blackness. One thing was sure—his voice was unfamiliar, and that was something of a relief. I’d half expected otherwise—that it would, somehow, be Lucian. Azriel’s distrust had a lot to answer for.
“Well, apparently vermin can set the trap off,” the stranger said. Despite the hint of exasperation, there was a deeper edge of wariness enriching his voice. He feared the person he spoke to. “As I said, there’s no one in the hole.”
He was definitely closer now, and tension wound through my limbs. I licked my lips, and once again tightened my grip on Amaya. Her screaming ratcheted up several notches, but at least she was restrained enough to keep it internal—although that didn’t help the ache in my head any.
“Yes, I’ve released them.” The stranger paused. “Yes, I’ll head up now and move any cars that might be hanging about, just in case.”
“Damn,” Jak muttered. “If he damages—”