Darkness Wanes (2 page)

“Eli,” I growled when he still wouldn’t answer me.

A female nephilim with shoulder-length blond hair turned toward me. “Be quiet!”

Sabelle’s golden eyes were filled with hatred. It never ceased to amaze me how a woman with such a sweet nature could become that hostile toward someone she hardly knew. When I’d first met her, her heart-shaped face had seemed welcoming and kind. That only lasted until she discovered I was a sensor.

“What is your problem?” I asked her. Not that I expected a logical reply.

Sabelle’s nostrils flared. “You! Your kind are nothing but…”

“I can tell you how to do it,” Bartol interrupted, putting a stop to the hate speech. He worked on the wall to my right and spoke so rarely that I was startled to hear his voice now.

I turned toward him. Bartol’s long brownish-gold hair fell past his shoulders in light waves. The oily strands didn’t quite hide the horrific scars on the left side of his face. The burns marred what had once been handsome features. Nephilim could usually heal from anything, but a magic spell had been infused with the damage so that he’d never be whole again. Not even my ability to nullify magic could do anything to help him now.

Bartol had been in Purgatory for nearly a century as his penalty for seducing an angel. Not long after arriving an overzealous guardian, Kerbasi, burned him as part of his own personal brand of punishment. Bartol had faced many horrors since arriving here, but that was probably among the worst. By my estimates, his sentence would finish around the same time as mine. He was a friend of Lucas’ and we planned to help him as much as we could when he got out.

“You know? How?” I asked.

He kept his head bowed. From what I’d heard, Bartol had been one of the most attractive nephilim in the world—which said a lot since they all had an otherworldly beauty about them—but his disfigurement and torturous time in Purgatory had broken him. I’d yet to catch a glimpse of the strong, cocky man that supposedly once existed.

“Summoning an archangel is a complicated spell that will require specific ingredients,” he replied in a low tone.

“What kind of…”

“No talking!” a female guardian yelled, her footsteps hurrying toward us.

I’d been too busy speaking to Bartol to notice her coming our way. The other prisoners picked up the pace with their pickaxes. Dannia’s silver eyes focused in my direction, and her expression said she considered me nothing more than demon spawn. It was more likely that the large, muscular woman had come from Hell herself. She had some of the severest features I’d ever seen—and I’d met a lot of scary people.

She uncoiled her bull whip. On all fours, I scrambled as far away as my chains allowed me to go, losing my pickaxe in the process. The shackle around my ankle jerked me to a stop right as her lash zinged across my back. It struck with a loud snap. I had to grit my teeth to keep from crying out as sharp pain raced across my skin. My buckskin top could only provide so much protection against her favorite weapon. I angled my head around and looked up at her.

“Bitch,” I spit out.

Dannia’s face turned red. She raised her whip high and swung it toward me again. As it whistled through the air, I leaned back and caught the tail a few inches before it could wrap around my neck. She jerked, but my gloves helped me keep a solid hold. This was only the second time I’d been fast enough to grab the whip before it struck. She’d been pissed the first time I did it, and I had no doubt I’d pay for doing it again. The shock now reflecting on her face made it worth the trouble, though.

“Let go,” she commanded.

Dannia had a lot of physical advantages over me, which meant I had to work harder to outsmart her. My senses—inherent to my race—could reveal all kinds of information about supernaturals, including their age, emotions, power levels, and types of magic they used. I knew she’d been alive for about ten thousand years, whereas I was only twenty-eight and mortal for most of that.

She primarily relied on her superior strength, but I had a couple of things going for me as well. For one, I was used to being weaker than most of the sups around me. Two, I had immunity to magic. The spells she used to control the nephilim didn’t work on me. Physical punishment was her next option, but the archangel Remiel would step in if she went too far. Ever since Kerbasi got caught abusing his prisoners too much, the archangel had started keeping a closer eye on things in Purgatory. It wasn’t his job, but he ranked higher than the guardians and used that position when he was so inclined.

“No,” I said, tightening my hold on the whip further.

Dannia’s silver eyes brightened with an eerie glow. “You will regret it if you don’t let go.”

All the other prisoners had stopped working to watch us. I could feel their eyes on me, as well as their disapproval. They hated it when I fought back. Most of them just wanted to serve their time and leave. Except for Bartol, they were all in this place because of their plot to reveal supernaturals to the human world. It had succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations. I’d had nothing to do with that since the “coming out” party had actually been a distraction for another plot—the one that got me into trouble.

While the archangels dealt with the chaos that erupted after the sups made their presence known to the world, I was breaking into Purgatory to free the
nerou
. They were hybrids—half sensor and half nephilim. It didn’t happen often that the two races mated, perhaps a handful of times each century. But as I could testify, enemies sometimes became lovers. The archangels forbade creating offspring from such unions. They claimed that children born with the combined powers of sensors and nephilim would be too strong to let them roam free on Earth.

For thousands of years, they had been taking the nerou away shortly after their birth and confining them in Purgatory. Some of us—including my mate’s brother, Micah—had disagreed with that practice and found a way to get them out. Everyone involved in the rescue operation had been punished one way or another, but my individual penalty was a three-month sentence in Purgatory. I was rather certain the guards wished I’d been sent elsewhere.

“Go to Hell,” I growled at Dannia. “There’s nothing wrong with us talking.”

She narrowed her eyes. “There is if you’re plotting something.”

“I’m not plotting anything,” I said, glaring at her. Thankfully, she didn’t have a way of telling truth from lies the way I did. “You’re just paranoid and delusional.”

She jerked the whip, dragging me forward on my knees. I freed my hand from it, but I didn’t have time to move before her fist swung out. Pain exploded in my jaw as it drove into me like a battering ram. I crashed into the tunnel wall and bounced my head against the hard stone.

Stars clouded my vision. I blinked until the worst of them went away, and I could see again. This wasn’t my first round with Dannia. I was getting better at taking the beatings she inflicted on me every chance she got. Lucas had survived Kerbasi—a much crueler guardian than her. I always reminded myself of that whenever she took a few swipes at me.

“You’ll learn how to show some respect, sensor,” Dannia said, hovering over me.

I spit a mouthful of blood at her feet. “Respect that, Bitch.”

Rubbing at my bruised cheek, I noticed Eli giving me a pleading look. Most of the nephilim here were hardened and uncaring, but he was a psychiatrist back on Earth. He genuinely wanted to help people, supernaturals in particular. I’d become his newest pet project, whether I wanted to be or not.

“Guards!” Dannia yelled, calling them from down the tunnel. “Take the prisoners back to their cells.”

Half a dozen of them came marching toward us, wearing dark gray robes. One by one they freed the male and female nephilim from where their shackles were fixed to the floor and bound them together like a chain gang. It was meant to be demoralizing. Some held their heads up high, but the looks in their eyes told a different story. On Earth, they were powerful beings who commanded fear and respect from everyone around them. Here, they were treated worse than animals. It got to you no matter how much you tried to fight the feelings of helplessness.

When the guards reached me, Dannia shook her head. “This one is going to solitary…again.”

I gritted my teeth. In the seventy-six days I’d spent in this place—not that I’d been counting—ten of them had been in solitary confinement. Dannia hadn’t thought of that as a punishment right away, but once she realized its effectiveness she used any excuse to throw me in there.

“How long this time?” Aldous asked. He was shorter than the other guardians at only five and a half feet tall, but he had the thick muscles and stocky shoulders of a linebacker. Though he rarely smiled, he didn’t act cruel, either. That was a good thing, considering he ran the mining operations and watched over us during the day. If you had to work hard labor, you wanted a guy like him in charge. He did his best to look out for us.

Dannia straightened her shoulders. “Three days.”

“I don’t have much time left with these prisoners,” Aldous argued. “I could use her help here before they’re gone.”

He was lying. For reasons I hadn’t figured out, he often protected me the best he could.

“We both know you’ll be fine without this one. She hardly works, anyway.” Dannia unlocked my chain from the floor and yanked me to my feet. I couldn’t help wincing as a fresh wave of pain ignited in my head and blackness dotted my vision. There had to be a crack in my skull from where she’d slammed me into the wall.

Aldous’ eyes flashed with annoyance. As he watched the female guardian drag me away, I sensed his impotent rage. He didn’t care for Dannia’s treatment of me at all. As much as I wished I could appreciate his anger on my behalf, I couldn’t. It only made things worse. In this place, kindness was harder to take than cruelty. It was a subtle reminder that you were an actual person and should have the right to more humane treatment.

My heart was heavy as I shuffled down the corridor, moving as fast as my leg shackles and aching head would allow. Dannia brought me to the solid metal door that led to the solitary chamber. There was no fighting going in there. I’d already made my stand and wouldn’t push for a second round. If Lucas was sleeping right now, he might suffer another beating with me through his dreams—a side effect of our mating bond. It was only to protect him that I didn’t fight more often. I estimated that as long as I didn’t get hurt too much, he might not experience it. The last thing I wanted was for him to worry about me.

“Enjoy your stay,” Dannia said, shoving me into the dark room.

I fell onto my hands and knees on the frozen ground, waves of dizziness passing over me. Before I could turn around and get to my feet, she slammed the door and slid the lock into place. Everything went black. Not a hint of light entered the room, though I’d already memorized its dimensions from previous visits. I had about ten square feet to move around—larger than my other cell, but far too lonely. Without others nearby, I couldn’t sense anyone’s emotions. Somehow, even the anger and bitterness coming from my prison mates was better than the empty feeling I got in solitary.

Crawling to the far corner, I slumped against the wall and pulled my knees up against my chest. The frigid air in the room seeped into my bones. It had to be the coldest place in Purgatory. Every breath of air felt like it crystallized in my lungs and made me shiver. Immortality would keep me from getting pneumonia, but I’d still suffer. I ducked my head down and curled into myself as best I could. It would be three very long days.

Chapter Two

Lucas

Lucas pulled up to the high school and searched the crowd of teenagers leaving campus for a girl with shoulder-length brown hair, blue eyes, and a perpetual scowl. Emily usually waited for him on the sidewalk, but he saw no sign of her today. If she had detention again, he would not save her this time. No matter what argument she gave him.

At some point, she needed to push past her anger and resentment. She still had a bright future ahead of her. Lucas couldn’t keep intervening or else she’d never overcome her problems. Not to mention her math teacher, Mrs. Blackburn, had a way of treating him as if he was a schoolboy rather than a twenty-five-hundred-year-old immortal who had seen civilizations rise and fall. In all his existence, he’d never met a human who could look down on him even while he compelled them. He couldn’t entirely blame Emily for getting into trouble with her so often.

Shouting across the street drew his attention. Through a throng of adolescents, Lucas caught a glimpse of a red jacket the same shade as Emily had worn that morning. He left his SUV and marched over to the crowd, coming to stand at the back. He was nearly a head taller than most students and had no trouble seeing over them. What he found at the center of the circle left him cursing.

“Get out of my way,” he growled, squeezing past a couple of kids shouting encouragements.

Lucas had been in a bad mood since two nights ago. In a dream, he’d witnessed Melena getting whipped and beaten by one of the guardians. He’d woken drenched in sweat, feeling the haunting effects of her pain and knowing there was nothing he could do about it. If he could have found any way to get her out of Purgatory, he would have done so already. Unfortunately, every plan he and his brother devised would leave Emily alone and vulnerable.