Betrayal (43 page)

Cradling her useless arm, she sat up.

Her head swam. Her face was swelling. The darkness had already blinded her. She hoped… she hoped
her
eyes didn’t swell shut before she had taken out some of those eyes.

When Charisma had first seen them, about three years ago, she was patrolling. She got the itchy feeling of being watched. She saw glowing lights out of the corners of her eyes, swung and faced them. The lights blinked out. She told herself she was imagining things.

In her business, it was easy to imagine things.

In her business, sometimes she would rather go crazy than have to face the truth.

She hadn’t said anything to the other Chosen. After all, she’d never really
seen
anything. But finally Jacqueline said, “Hell is bubbling like a cauldron and creatures are escaping, all scaly skin and teeth and claws and ravenous appetite and little glowing eyes…”

Then every one of the Chosen Ones admitted to glimpsing at least one flash of demon in the dark. Even Samuel said he’d seen something peering at him from beneath a grate in the street. Of course, being Samuel, he jabbed it with the sharp cane he now carried. The thing had screamed and slithered away.

Most of the time, Charisma could barely tolerate Samuel. He was a boor, and only his wife, Isabelle, could keep him in check.

But right now Charisma wished Samuel and his stupid cane were here, because the eyes grew closer, and for the first time, she could hear the demons’ low gibbering.

They were excited. They smelled blood. They were salivating over the idea of fresh meat.

Charisma shuddered. She always carried a gun—a small pistol. It was loaded. Full of bullets. She needed to get it in her hand and take aim, and shoot them one by one…

No, wait. She’d lost her pistol somewhere. Where had she lost it?

Oh. She remembered. She’d fallen down before, on the very first day, before she’d been lost… or before she had admitted to herself she was lost. She’d heard something—something that sounded like a child wailing. She’d been running, trying to catch up. She’d turned a corner, saw a demon, squat and scaly, loping along ahead of her, its head thrown back, its lipless mouth open and imitating a human baby’s cry. Furious, exhausted, ready to kill, she had pulled her handgun, tripped on a loose stone, landed on her hands and knees.

The pistol fell, skidded toward one of the cracks that yawned so unexpectedly in the ground. She’d flung herself after it. Missed.

The demon cackled and kept running.

The pistol fell off into the void. Charisma waited, listening for it to land, thinking perhaps there was a way down. At last, long moments later, she heard a faint, far-distant thump.

She didn’t want to go down that far.

Down here, in the tunnels, she was too close to hell.

She hadn’t come down here to look for hell. She’d come down because…

Because she’d witnessed a kidnapping. A human child snatched from its parents and carried below the city. She had fought the demons, rescued the baby, returned it to its parents, and realized that somewhere during the battle, she’d lost her crystal bracelet.

But she couldn’t give up that bracelet. She’d made it herself, drilling the stones and threading them on a sturdy chain. Even though the stones seldom spoke to her anymore, she never took them off. This bracelet contained the first crystals that had spoken to her…

She was Charisma Fangorn, one of the Chosen Ones, and her gift was that she could hear the earthsong.

All of her life, Charisma had been aware of the earth, speaking through the stones at her wrist, at her neck, crooning like a mother to her beloved child.

As a child, Charisma had reveled in those loving tones, and believing everyone heard the same song, she had spoken to her mother about the pleasure she felt in hearing it.

Two things.

One—her mother wasn’t her biological mother, and an altogether pretty poor excuse for a human being.

Two—that woman started farming her out as a clairvoyant at markets and street fairs across the western U.S. Charisma hated it, hated the nomad lifestyle and managed to get into school where she—

Her eyes popped open.

The darkness pressed on her eyeballs.

The glowing eyes were closer. A lot closer.

Charisma pulled her shoulder in. In a slow, desperately painful movement she pressed her back against the wall and staggered to her feet.

The glowing eyes surrounded her, but they moved no closer.

Yes. She tried to smile. They wouldn’t touch her. Because…she was one of the Chosen Ones. She would die fighting. And at least she had found her bracelet. At least she hadn’t come down here in vain.

A few levels up, the walls were slimy and cold. Down here, the heat from below radiated up Charisma’s back and fought off the chill of death.

Charisma bent, inch by painful inch, down to her boot and pulled her knife. She grasped the handle in her sweaty palm. She wished she could say the blade felt familiar, but no. She lost her knives in fights every day, every week, until Irving bought them by the case and kept them in the hall closet for the Chosen so they would never be without.

God bless Irving. Almost a hundred years old…She had never thought he would outlive her.

The creatures chattered in anticipation, prisoners who for the first time in weeks glimpsed a good meal.

Oh, God. She wished she hadn’t thought of that, or of the way Carl Badden had looked when they found his body. He’d been one of the Chosen for only weeks when they lost him, and his expression of terror and anguish…No, Charisma would fight to her last breath…

She breathed, in and out, the sound rasping in her ears.

The gibbering got louder, more excited.

She lifted the knife. Narrowed her eyes. Braced herself.

And staggered when something heavy, cold and slick and silent, fell on her from above.

She screamed, the pain in her shoulder agonizing, then screamed again as that
thing
sank its teeth into the muscle above her collarbone. She stabbed, impaling it, heard it squeal and struggle. She lost her grip on her knife. She grabbed, dug her fingers into some body part. A nose. An eye. She didn’t care. She only knew she suddenly had a handle with which to throw it, and she did, flung it as hard as she could, the way a person threw a cockroach or slug or spider or snake.

A thump. A squawk. Four pairs of eyes went out. She’d knocked them over like bowling pins, and that made her happy. But she’d lost her last weapon, and the chattering grew guttural, angry, intent.

The eyes grew closer. Closer. Glowed hotter, red and blue.

Her shoulder throbbed. The bite spread cold down her arm and up her neck. Venom. She’d been poisoned. The world wavered. She was going to die…

She heard a rush of movement from the side.

She crouched and turned to fight.

Loud and deep and animal, something roared.

And right before her eyes, a bomb exploded. Light flashed scalding white, burning her retinas.

The creatures screamed.

She tried to cover her eyes. The ragged edges of her collarbone scraped together.

The creatures scattered.

She sought unconsciousness.

The beast roared again, closer this time, then like a vengeful god grabbed her, lifted her, flung her over a broad, hairy shoulder, and bounded like a lion up the stairs.

Her arm hung uselessly down his back.

The pain was excruciating.

The fear broke her spirit.

She welcomed death.

.