Darkness Devours (38 page)

Snakes hissed and slithered as the Rakshasa moved around to my feet. She bent and took off my shoes, then tossed them toward the pile of my clothes. Her serpents kissed my toes, their tongues like little needles, pricking rather than tickling. Blood trickled from each of the wounds, the warmth contrasting sharply with the chill of my skin.

I dug my nails into my palms, and the pain cut through the haze of panic threatening to consume me,
allowing some semblance of clarity. But it was all I could do to remain still and resist the temptation to get up and run.

I couldn’t move yet—figuratively
or
physically. My body still felt heavy, and Amaya had yet to finish her journey through my flesh.

The serpent-headed Rakshasa rose and disappeared back into the shadows. The other four continued their chant, and the beat of life in the stones around and underneath me got stronger. Whatever it was they were calling into life, it would soon be awake and aware. I had a feeling I didn’t want to be here when that happened.

I licked my lips, my gaze darting from side to side, trying to find the position of the other two Rakshasa. I couldn’t find the exotic one, but the serpent woman appeared again, an ancient-looking urn held with both hands above her head.

She stopped at my feet and spoke. The words were alien, but they ramped the power gathering in the air, making my hair stand on end and my skin quiver in revulsion.

The heat that was Amaya died within me, and I felt a moment of sheer terror. Then I realized the coolness of steel was pressed against my stomach, and the relief that swept me was so fierce that tears stung my eyes.

The serpent woman tilted the urn, her voice more strident, her words more commanding. Water poured down onto my feet and legs, thick and odorous. She continued to pour the liquid as she moved up my body, until I was completely covered in the goopy substance.

She reached my head, bent, and forced my mouth
open, her sharp talons cutting into my skin as the tongues of her snakes darted across my face, tiny whips that cut and tasted. As she tilted the urn, Amaya screamed,
No!

I didn’t think, I just reacted. I grabbed Amaya’s hilt, bought her sharply upward, and sliced through the hand that held me so brutally. The snake-headed Rakshasa screamed, the sound shattering the growing spell of power. The heartbeat in the stone hesitated, and the other Rakshasa roared. It was a sound filled with fury and death.

I threw myself sideways, scuttling the Rakshasa on my left and barely avoiding the urn as it crashed inches from my head. The moisture that ran through the shards of the ruined vessel was thick, gluey, and black. Blood, but not human, not animal. It smelled altogether different and alien.

I threw a punch into the face of the Rakshasa I’d scuttled, crushing her bulbous nose and sending blood and bits of flesh flying, then scrambled to my feet and ran for the nearest fissure. It was six against one and that wasn’t great odds in anyone’s language. If I could restrict available space—restrict the space they had to come at me—I might have more of a chance.

Air stirred, and the sensation of danger swamped me. I swung around and lashed out with the heel of my foot, sending the nearest Rakshasa flying backward. Another dove at me. I sliced down with Amaya, severing flesh and bone with equal ease. I continued to swing Amaya, using her as a shield as I ran backward, and prayed like hell there was nothing between me and that fissure.

My back hit stone, and pain snatched my breath.
Blood began to pour from the wounds on my back and dots danced before my eyes. I hissed, but somehow remained upright and swinging.

The Rakshasa came at me as one, a hideous mass of flesh that cut and tore. I blocked blows, ducked teeth and claws, and attacked as best I could, until the nearby walls were coated and it was hard to know what blood was mine and what belonged to the Rakshasa. But there was no stopping them, no matter how much flesh I hacked from their bodies, because they didn’t die. They just regenerated.

This
wasn’t
going to end prettily. Not for me, anyway.

And that meant I had to try something else.
Anything
else.

The fissure was several feet away to my left. It was big and dark, and air stirred sluggishly around it, hinting at a possible escape route. Or, at the very least, another chamber.

Anywhere had to be better than here.

I kicked the nearest Rakshasa in the gut, sending her sprawling into her companions, then swung Amaya viciously from left to right, hamstringing several others. Their attack briefly faltered. I spun and ran into the fissure. The walls closed in around me, slick and uneven. The air still stirred, but it was putrid and dense, and my lungs felt like they were on fire.

As my shoulders began to brush the sharp edges of the walls, I slowed, my heart racing and my breath a harsh rasp. Little sound came from behind me—certainly no sound of pursuit. And yet every sense I had pulsed with the closeness of danger. Whether it
was coming from the Rakshasa behind me or something unseen up ahead, I had no idea.

I struggled on, slipping sideways through the rock as the space grew tighter. It was blacker than ink in this foul-smelling place, the light of the stalactites having long since faded. Amaya wasn’t emitting any flame, either, but I could hear her static running through my mind, a chant that vacillated between the need to kill and the urge for caution.

The fissure grew even tighter, until the rocks were scraping my breasts and butt. I cursed softly, then jumped as the sensation of movement stirred the air around me. I raised Amaya, holding her in front of me even though I couldn’t say whether the movement had come from ahead or behind. I scanned the darkness either way, but there was nothing to see or scent, and certainly no sound of steps.

But the Rakshasa were spirits, and maybe they’d finally shed their human skins. If that were the case, then I
wouldn’t
hear anything. And it meant I was in even deeper shit. I could fight flesh, and I could see ghosts, but would I even be able to see the Rakshasa in spirit form, let alone fight them?

I guess I was going to find out, because if the gathering sensation of movement was anything to go by, they were coming after me.

I pushed on, my lungs still burning and my head beginning to spin. I swallowed heavily and kept a fierce grip on Amaya. My skin was slick with blood—both mine and the stuff from the urn—but it didn’t make me slip through the rocks any easier.

Sound began to creep across the silence. It was soft
and whispery, and I cocked my head sideways, listening intently. The image of snakes slithering down the body of the Rakshasa and onto the floor rose, and I groaned softly. As if I didn’t have enough to deal with.

My hip lodged against a rock and I twisted, trying to move around it, only to find myself stuck fast. Panic surged. With a soft cry, I raised Amaya and hit the obstruction as hard as I could with her hilt. The rock shattered like glass, spraying needle-sharp shards into the darkness and sending me sprawling forward. I landed on my knees—hard—and stayed there for several seconds, ignoring pain and gasping for breath as I scanned the ink and tried to get some idea of where I was. There was a sense of vastness to this place, which suggested the fissure had given way to something a lot bigger than the cavern I’d been in before.

Only trouble was, I wasn’t alone.

And there was an odd sort of consciousness in the air, a dark energy that thrummed around me even as the stone under my knees beat with faint life.

The house of their god, I suddenly realized, and wondered if I’d run from the frying pan only to step into the fire.

I swallowed heavily and pushed to my feet. There were no stalactites here to light the way, so I swept Amaya in front of me to feel for obstructions. The knowledge that someone was near grew, until it was so thick and sharp it flayed my skin.

“So,” the exotic Rakshasa said, her words soft but seeming to reverberate through the darkness, “you bear a dark sword. This is the power I sensed earlier.”

I stopped and raised Amaya. Her chant no longer
raced across the edges of my mind, but her energy still burned within me. “It’s a power that will kill you all if you do not let me go.”

“No matter what weapon you bear, you are, in the end, flesh and blood. All we have to do is keep attacking. Once your life blood has soaked the stone and fed the god beneath our feet, we will dine on your flesh.”

Something hit my right calf, and tiny teeth sliced deep. I yelped and jumped away, and the snake hissed. I swung Amaya, but didn’t hit anything. Damn it, I needed to see to be able to fight. I was all but blind, and relying on scent and sound just wasn’t good enough. Not when these creatures made little sound and had no scent.

One,
came Amaya’s whisper,
become
.

I frowned, not sure what she meant. Static rolled through my mind, a sound of frustration if ever I’d heard it.

Open,
she growled,
join you
.

Meaning she wanted me to open myself fully to her? Wanted me to allow her—a demon spirit encased in steel—free rein to run through me? Control me?

Not,
she said.
One
.

I shivered. The one thing I’d feared from the moment I’d plunged her steel into my flesh and felt the surge of her power was that she would somehow gain a foothold in my mind and make me more like her. And now she was asking me to grant her the freedom to leave the sword and fully become one with me.

Every instinct I had suggested it would be a very bad move.

But if my only chance of survival was to do what I feared the most, then do it I would. That determination was what had driven me to confront Jak and ask for his help, and it still drove me now.

I just had to hope that once I’d given her freedom, Amaya would step back into steel when all this was over.

And that was one thought to which she
didn’t
reply.

The air stirred to my left. I swung around, stabbing Amaya in front of me. The exotic Rakshasa laughed softly—from the right, not the left. Something hard and cold hit my back and I jumped away, swearing as I swung around. Again, I hit nothing but air.

Blood was now running freely down the back of my legs, and every drop that hit the stone seemed to make the heartbeat stronger.

“The sleep of our god ends,” she whispered, this time in front of me. “Soon he will awaken fully, and then we will bleed you out.”

“Not if I can help it.” To Amaya, I said,
Let’s do it
.

Invite
, she whispered, excitement in her tone.

Trepidation shivered through me, but it wasn’t like I had a lot of options left. I took a deep breath, then silently said,
Amaya, become one with me.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then power exploded, thick and heavy, surging through steel and flesh with equal ferocity. It was a storm that tore my core apart, fiber by fiber, then pieced me back together, all within a matter of heartbeats.

Only it was no longer me, but
we
.

Because I wasn’t alone. Someone else was in here with me, sharing my body and my thoughts, even as
she shared her powers and abilities. It was a strange, unsettling sensation.

We opened my eyes. The darkness fell away, and the Rakshasa appeared. Or rather, the blue shimmer of her energy appeared. She was standing five feet away, and there was a pool of seething, sinewy flesh at her feet. She flicked a finger to the left, and several snakes instantly slithered away. Looping around to get behind me.

Amaya hissed. It sounded weird coming out of my mouth. We didn’t move, just held the sword as we studied our surroundings.

The cavern itself was vast and roughly triangular in shape. Blue bolts of energy shot across the walls, the rhythm matching the beat of the heart. It seemed to be originating from a shadowed enclave at the very tip of the triangle, and I suddenly remembered what Azriel had said:
Smash the god’s power, and the Rakshasa will be fixed in flesh and more easily killed.

That
was our way out of here.

Fight,
Amaya growled and raised the sword, sweeping it from left to right so fast that the steel sang as it cut through the air.

No,
I bit back.
We stop the dark god rising first.

The snakes swept in. We moved, the sword little more than a blur as we struck, killing the snakes in one deadly sweep. The Rakshasa sent more snakes at us, but I had no intention of hanging around, waiting for them to get close.

My one chance of getting out of here alive might lie in reaching that enclave and destroying whatever lay within it, and I wasn’t about to waste it.

I forced my limbs into a run, battling Amaya’s desire to stand and fight as much as the weakness in my limbs. The Rakshasa’s reaction was swift and deadly. She lunged after me, her sharp nails flashing. I twisted away, but she raked my back and a scream tore out of my throat. Not just from the pain, but also from frustration. Her nails were poisonous and I had no idea how quickly it would take effect and render me immobile once again.

Then I thrust that thought aside. All that mattered was reaching the enclave, and right now I could still run. My feet slapped quickly against the cold stone, but there was little sound to be heard other than the harsh rasp of my breathing.

Something hit the back of my legs and I stumbled. I flung out my arms to steady myself, and somehow retained balance. Again something struck at me, this time tearing into flesh. Snake.
Fuck
. The sword swung and there was no more snake, just clear ground between us and the enclave.

The exotic Rakshasa came at us. I heard the wind of her approach, felt the burn of her energy against my skin. We twisted away and swung the sword, the dark point slicing across perfect features, splitting flesh and cutting down to the bone. Her skin from cheek to chin peeled away, the flap hanging loose and giving her a half-skeletal look. She screamed, but it was a sound of fury rather than pain. We twisted again, and lashed out with a heel. It hit her high in the neck, hard enough to crush her larynx. Whether it did or not I had no idea, but the force behind the blow was enough to send her flailing backward.