Rhea bent over me, bringing with her a calming herbal scent. “Try to relax.”
A shaky laugh escaped me. “Easy for you to say.” My fists wouldn’t unclench. The spot where I’d cut my palm a few moments earlier to make another blood sacrifice to Asclepius had already healed, but the skin there still burned.
“Do it anyway,” she said.
To distract myself from my fear, I focused on identifying the ingredients of the fragrant oil she dabbed on my forehead, temples, and wrists. Six months earlier, I couldn’t tell the difference between a cannabis plant and a fern. But now I called up the name and purpose of each herb in the oil by scent alone. Sharp, woody rosemary for focus and purity. Helichrysum, with its musty-sweet straw and honey scent, for unblocking the subconscious and healing old emotional wounds. Clean, light cedar wood to calm the mind and ease tension.
Giguhl sat in a half-lotus position next to me, cradling my cold hand in his claw. His eyes were closed while he waited for the rituals to be completed. Ever since I told him he’d be coming with me to the Liminal, he’d grown quiet, introspective. I guess I’d expected him to bitch and moan. But even the Mischief demon understood the gravity of our mission and felt the need to mentally prepare.
I was relieved that Rhea had insisted the Queen, Alexis, and the rest of the mages, faeries, and vampires stay outside the chapel during the ritual. It was hard enough to focus with the voices in my head reminding me that I had no idea how to win this battle. It would only have been worse with an audience. Even so, I felt their presence just beyond the walls. The tension, the speculations, the pressure.
Rhea’s papery soft hands found mine. She looked into my eyes, her own dark with worry. “You need to call up your power. It will open a direct conduit to the Liminal.”
A cramp pinched my clenched jaw. I licked my lips. Calling up my Chthonic energies was always unsettling. The blessing and the curse of my Chthonic abilities was that they were easier to access when I was under some sort of extreme emotional stress. Rhea had worked with me to be able to call them at will, but never were they as strong as when I was angry or scared. Which meant they should be a snap to command at that moment.
I took a deep cleansing breath and closed my eyes. In my mind, I played a montage of Maisie’s greatest hits. The feral Maisie we’d liberated from that crypt. Remorseful Maisie, just after she realized she’d nearly killed Adam. Vengeful Maisie, Lavinia’s executioner. Fugue-state Maisie, the murderer.
My chest swelled and my head swam as I reexperienced those moments. I swam through the wave of emotions they brought up, diving down into black current.
Power rose up through the floor. Sizzled under my skin, rising up through my legs, my abdomen, my chest, my throat. My throat expanded and filled with the dark power.
As if from far away, I heard Rhea’s voice. “Steady.”
I opened my eyes. My vision was tinged red but super sharp. I noticed individual dust motes and the spider building a web in the rafters of the old chapel. I heard the heartbeat of a mouse hiding in the walls.
Hot wind rose, whipping my hair up around my face. Inside, I felt a door open in my solar plexus and the gentle tug of the in-between.
Maisie moaned in her sleep. Beneath her pale lids, her eyes jerked back and forth. Her breathing became more rapid.
“Don’t leave her body.” The voice that emerged from my lips was both mine and not mine. Deeper, darker, like a secret language.
Rhea put a hand over her heart. “I will watch over her corporeal form. You see to her spirit.”
Confident everyone would be safe here in the mortal realm, I surrendered to the pull of the Liminal. “Giguhl, let’s do this.”
This time, the shock of arriving in the Liminal wasn’t as sharp. I’d already seen the lunar landscape, the creepy crossroads with its ominous red flag, the horizons shimmering like a mirage. The light still hurt my eyes and the sharp air slashed my lungs. But something was different.
Me.
When I’d come before, I hadn’t tapped into my Chthonic power. I was just me, Sabina, visiting a foreign place. But when I called up my power, I was more. The power of the Chthonic goddesses filled me: Melinoe and Persephone, Themis and Gaia, Hekate and Lilith. Their dark energies allowed me to see details I couldn’t before.
A low-slung red moon loomed on the horizon. Black crows crouched in a skeletal tree. And long before the howl called to me, I felt the beast’s presence. The beat of its heart called to me through the thin air. Its hatred burned my skin. Its green eyes flashed a warning. It paused, just beyond the horizon, knowing I was already tracking its progress. My awareness of it confused the beast. Frightened it.
Good.
I didn’t have time to pursue shadow monsters. I had to find Maisie and free her from the prison of Cain’s influence. I still wasn’t sure how I was supposed to manage that trick. But first I had to find her.
And Giguhl.
“G?” I yelled. My voice echoed back at me like a taunt. Where the hell had that demon gone?
I turned slowly on the crossroads, looking for some sign of my wayward minion. But just then, a faraway shout reached my ears. Squinting in the odd light, I looked up. A gray speck rushed toward the ground from high above. The shouts grew louder the larger the speck grew.
I jumped out of the way at the last moment. Giguhl, in cat form, slammed to the earth like a tiny, hairless meteor. His body lay still in a deep crater in the center of the crossroads. Scrambling down the side of the hole, I rushed toward him.
“Giguhl!” I shouted, lifting his small, limp body.
The cat shook himself. “Thank the gods for nine lives,” he groaned.
I frowned, checking him over for injuries. But other than his unfocused pupils, he seemed fine. “I’m glad you’re all right, but I didn’t tell you to change forms,” I said. “Change back to the big-ass, scary demon, please.” The last thing I needed was to face down Cain with a shivering feline.
“Red, this is the Liminal,” the cat said, pulling himself out of my arms. He licked his paws and smoothed them over his head. “Normal rules don’t apply.”
Of course they didn’t. Because that would make things easier. “Can you just decide to change into your demon form?”
“You don’t get it.” The cat shook his head. “I didn’t choose this form. The Liminal chose it for me.”
I sighed and shook my head. “Are you saying the Liminal has a consciousness and can impose its own will?”
“Trust me, Red. It’s best not to question these things.” He shrugged his naked shoulder. “Let’s just go find Maisie, okay?”
I looked around the crossroads for some clue of where to begin our search for Cain and Maisie. But when a neon sign that said PSYCHOTIC MURDERER THIS WAY didn’t appear, I knew it was time to try something else.
My next logical step would have been to call out for Maisie. But something, some instinct, told me to hold my tongue. A low-frequency pressure in my gut pulsed with the knowledge that monsters worse than the growling beast lurked in the shadows.
Two red dots appeared in the distance. Eyes. I braced myself, expecting Stryx. The vampiric owl had met an untimely end in New Orleans at the hands of a zombie I’d accidentally summoned, but that didn’t mean he didn’t make occasional appearances in my nightmares. Plus, the feathered demon had belonged to Cain, so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility he’d make an appearance.
Closer now. Low to the ground. I frowned. If the eyes belonged to an owl, they’d be higher to indicate flying. So if the eyes didn’t belong to the owl, I reasoned, they must have belonged to one with four legs. “Look alive, G. We’ve got company.”
I looked around for a place to set up a defensive position. But I had no weapons. Although judging from Giguhl’s claim that normal rules didn’t apply here, I wondered what good mundane weapons would do me anyway. And the desolate landscape offered little in the way of cover. So I stood in the center of the spokes with my fists clenched and my body braced for attack.
The creature reached us quickly. Faster than anything could have moved in the mortal realm. Jaw clenched, I waited.
Then, as if someone had pulled back a black curtain, the canine emerged into the light. Something about the dog seemed familiar. Like I’d met it before. Of course that was impossible, but still, the feeling the animal was an ally persisted.
“You now owe me two favors, Chosen.” The dog’s mouth didn’t move, but I clearly heard the male voice in my head. At first, the words made no sense. I frowned down at the dog, wondering if this was some trick of my subconscious. “But I have to say, the sacrifice of such potent mixed blood almost makes it worth my trouble.”
That’s when I realized who the dog really was. “Asclepius?” I said aloud.
The big black head nodded. I should have felt reassured, but my thoughts kept shifting like sand. Other voices whispered in my head. And every now and then, a flash of light or shadow would zoom by in my peripheral vision.
“Red?” Giguhl whispered. “What’s going on?”
“Shh.” I grabbed him off the ground and threw him on my shoulder. “Can you take me to her?” I asked the god.
Without another thought or action, the dog turned and trotted away. With Giguhl in my arms, I took off after him. “Red, seriously. It’s probably not a good idea to follow strange animals around right now.”
“Hush,” I said. “I know what I’m doing.” No, I didn’t at all, but my instincts were guiding me now.
Soon the lunar landscape gave way to large gray boulders. Asclepius slipped between two building-sized rocks I hadn’t seen before. He didn’t glance back to be sure I was following. He knew I would.
The entrance to the cave gaped open like a mouth in silent scream. Asclepius’s red eyes bathed the portal in blood light. “She’s down there,” the voice boomed in my head.
“Wait,” I said. “Aren’t you coming with me?”