Days of New: The Complete Collection (Serials 1-5) (38 page)

“They managed to hurt Grace pretty good,” Maya continued on. “Why do you think Michaela didn’t trust Grace? Do you?”

“I think Michaela will figure it out.” Clark didn’t want to think about whether he trusted Grace or not. If he had to worry about one more thing, his head might explode, and he didn’t want to ruin the car’s leather.

“Zarachiel seemed pretty taken with her.”

“That’s who Z is.” Clark shrugged. “He helps people. That’s what he does. He’s just trying to save her.”

“You’re probably right. He just acted like he…
liked
her or something. And I know that’s the silliest thing to think about right now, but I’ve never seen him show interest in anyone else before.”

Now that Maya had started talking, she didn’t seem to be able to stop. She was probably nervous. He examined her from the corner of his eye as she babbled on about Z and Grace. Her hands were still wringing in her lap, her eyes darting toward the woods like some monster might race out and attack the car. Every now and then, she’d wipe her palms against her the same simple dress she always wore. Her chest rose and fell with shallow pants.

“You’re totally freaking out,” Clark accused.

Maya stopped mid-sentence, her mouth gaping open as she turned her rambling attention toward him. “What?”

“About Lucifer. You’re terrified.”

“I am not!”

“Dude. You obviously are. You’re sweating like a pig over there.”

“That’s rude.”

“I don’t care. Just don’t mess up my leather.”

Maya sniffed and shifted in her seat. “I’m not afraid of him.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

“Are you?”

Clark took a moment to respond. When he did, his humor was gone. “I didn’t used to be.”

Maya was quiet for a moment. Finally, she asked, “What was he like before? Everyone says that he was so different back then. What changed?”

Clark really didn’t know how to answer that. He’d been asking himself that question over and over since he’d first had the dream about Lucifer. He tried to think about his time in Hell, when they’d worked together on Clark’s magic. It felt like a lifetime ago. “Don’t get me wrong. He was never the good guy in the story, but there was something about him…a reluctance, maybe. Sure, he did bad things. But every now and then, I would see this part of him that truly hated what he did. He always spoke of fate and how it’d given him the shitty hand. He said it just as easily could’ve been Michaela in Hell leading the fallen. Fate was the flip of the coin. And he lost.” Clark shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road so he wouldn’t have to look at Maya. “I guess that’s why I sort of liked him. Because he could acknowledge that.”

Silence filled the car for a long time after that. Maya seemed to be thinking over what he’d said. “I kissed him,” she said, almost whispering.

Clark cursed and rubbed the heel of his hand against his eyes while keeping the other hand on the wheel. “Well, you really know how to pick them, I’ll give you that.”

“I kissed you.”

Clark shuddered. “Yeah, and I feel like I kissed my sister.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Maya sighed, her eyes going back to the window. When she spoke again, her seriousness had returned. “But I might be able to help you.”

“You might get yourself killed thinking you can help me.”

“He wouldn’t hurt me.”

Clark shook his head. There was no getting through to her, so he just focused on driving and dodging. The short winter day was giving way to an early twilight that turned the sky to an ashy orange and flooded the car with elongated shadows. The Chevelle rumbled along beneath Clark and helped sooth his tattered nerves. He didn’t know what to expect to happen in the cave, and with Maya there, he was even more uncertain. If things got bad, who was his priority: Camille or Maya? How would he even be able to choose?

“You’re thinking awfully hard about something,” Maya said. The shadows lent her face a sort of haunted, sallow look, and Clark had to look away.

“Just worried.”

“I’ve never thought of you as the type to worry.”

Clark snorted. He used to be that type; now all he did was worry. Right that moment, he was worried about whether he should go to the main park’s entrance or try and find a back way into the cave. He was worried about sneaking up on Lucifer and how many demons would be in the cave. But likely none of that really mattered. Lucifer knew he was coming. The element of surprise didn’t really apply to this situation. So Clark went in through the front, passing between pillars of stacked stone and a plaque that read, “Mammoth Cave National Park.”

He didn’t have a phone or his GPS this time to guide him, but he really doubted he would need something like that. Likely, he could just follow the pounding of his heart, as if it were a divining rod that would vibrate harder the closer he came to his target. He turned off the car and got out. From the trunk, he gathered an assortment of medical supplies—he knew Camille was going to need some medical treatment, even though he couldn’t dwell on that thought for long—and the pair of bone daggers Lucifer had left on his father’s grave. Finally he understood the gesture: Lucifer had wanted him properly armed for their battle, so this time, when someone died, they wouldn’t come back. He strapped the knives to his chest holster and threw the backpack over his shoulder.

“Ready?” he asked Maya, who stood next to the trunk, her eyes watching as he’d packed every bottle of water, every pack of gauze.

She nodded, the hollow of her throat bobbing as she swallowed heavily.

“We can do this,” Clark muttered mostly to himself as he set off toward the trailhead. “We can do this.”

The woods were as Clark remembered, although the last time he’d trekked through this patch of forest, it’d been summertime. He’d worried about bears as he stumbled his way toward the cave with a handle of whiskey in his hand. Back then, he’d gone into the woods to chase away his demons. But now he was hunting them down.

Bare limbs twisted above his head, letting slivers of the fading sunset tumble through to the semi-frozen ground beneath his worn boots. Creatures not hibernating for the winter scuttled along the ground, snapping twigs and rustling leaves beneath their little feet. Clark took it as a good sign that the animals were out. Their activity meant there wasn’t a bigger predator nearby.

“How do you know where to go?” Maya asked after they’d walked for a while. They’d left the trail and ventured into the woods, forced to pick their way through and around thicker bushes or fallen trees.

“I’ve come this way before,” Clark said, trying not to think about it too much.

“Oh.” Maya’s voice trailed off as she thought that over. Clark hadn’t told her about finding Michaela in the very same cave they were hiking toward now. He hadn’t told her much of anything really, which made her faith in him all the more surprising. If the roles were reversed, Clark knew he wouldn’t be as trusting as she was. He didn’t know what that said about her, or him for that matter, but she was with him now, and like it or not, they were both in this together.

They walked for a while in silence. The trek stretched out to one hour, then two, then three. Clark and Maya both carried powerful flashlights, letting the beams guide them across the rocky, unpredictable terrain when the sun fully set. Using valuable battery power was a sacrifice they were willing to make in order to see where they were walking. After a little while longer, Clark stopped and pulled a water bottle from his pack. He handed it to Maya first, who took a long swig before giving it back.

She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “Are we close?” Clark nodded while he drank. “It’s weird out here. Do you feel that?”

“It’s quiet,” Clark said, handing her the bottle back. Not minding his backwash, she took another drink.

“Too quiet.” Maya thought for a moment before she added, “What’s to stop Lucifer from just attacking us and taking your magic by force?”

“Are you doubting your ‘good man’ now?”

“No. I’m just asking a question.”

Clark raised his brows, but he didn’t press the issue. “I wouldn’t put it past him right now. But it would surprise me. He wants me to see Camille hurt, or at least that’s the impression I’ve gotten from the dream. And without a demon inside of me, it’s going to take both of us to get this magic out. So he’s going to need my help.”

Maya stayed quiet after that. Clark zipped up his bag, and they carried on. The terrain started to slope downward, the trees thinning. Clark knew they were close. The smell of the cave—wet earth and stagnate air—trailed up his nose. Bats and other night birds whisked through the air. Their flashlight beams danced across the ground, illuminating a slight rocky drop-off. Carefully, they both lowered themselves to the ground, grasping onto rocks and searching with the tips of their toes for solid ground. When they turned around, they stood before the open mouth of the cave.

Tendrils of rocks like solidified tears hung from the top of the opening. Rambling vines and prickly bushes clustered around the bottom of the entrance. The cave itself seemed to be breathing; with every exhale, a gust of cold air washed over Clark’s skin. He knew this was the right spot because he’d carried Michaela out through this very opening. But there was another reason he knew it was the right cave.

Demons were crawling all over the place.

“Clark,” Maya said quietly, her eyes following the darting, slinking movements of the demons as they guarded the entrance. They crawled up the face of the cave or hung from vines. Eyes, red and unblinking, glowed from deeper within the cavern. A few braver ones, all lower born judging by their oozing, decaying bodies, slithered closer to Clark and Maya. Afraid, Maya stumbled back, her eyes wide.

“They won’t hurt us,” Clark said evenly. Just in case, he pulled out his daggers.

“How do you know?”

“Like I said, Lucifer wants me to see Camille. And he still needs me. I bet he sent these out here to keep away other angels like Michaela.”

To prove his part, Clark slowly advanced toward the opening. Demons stepped aside for him, their claws scraping across the hard-packed ground as they followed after him. When he was close enough that it was obvious the demons were going to let him pass, he looked back over his shoulder and motioned to Maya.

“Just move slow. And if they try to stop you, don’t come any closer.”

“You could just kill them,” she argued.

Clark shook his head. “Not today.”

When Maya took a step forward, bringing her closer to the nearest demon, the creature let out a shriek of fright and scrambled backward. It practically fell over itself to run away. It disappeared—eyes wild and mouth foaming—into the cave.

“What did you do?” Clark asked, watching the ugly creature disappear into the dark.

Maya was frozen with one foot in the air. “Um…I don’t know.”

“Well, keep doing it. We don’t have all night.”

Maya rolled her eyes and walked toward him. All the demons, even some of the high born ones, scattered as she approached. Their eyes were wary and watchful. None of them ventured close, carefully keeping their distance like they’d been ordered to. One even reached down and parted a veil of vines for her to pass under. When she stood inside the mouth of the cave, she looked at Clark.

“That was weird.”

Clark gritted his teeth. He had an idea about why the demons were reacting like this, and it worried him. Maya was his trump card, but it appeared that Lucifer already knew she was coming if he’d taken the time to warn off his demons.

“Let’s go,” he said.

The walk into the depths of the cavern was long and twisting. The slope downward was constant, and Clark felt like they were descending into the bowels of Hell itself. Water drops pinged off the floor, dripping from the skinny spikes of rock above their heads. The floor was like a small stream trickling downward, so they had to be careful with each step. Bats came and went above their heads, making Maya cringe every time. Their footsteps echoed throughout the place, making everything much noisier than Clark would have wanted. Not like he could really sneak up on Lucifer in this position, but all the racket still made him uneasy.

Clark ducked under a low-hanging ledge and emerged into the main room of the underground cave system. The stream at their feet dumped into a bigger one that cut across the floor and babbled out of view. Though mostly familiar, the cave looked slightly different: there were large clusters of rocks in new places, and one wall was just a crumpled pile of dust that didn’t look very solid at all. But the wall behind a narrow, almost-dry waterfall still bore the ancient writings of the Watchers. Lanterns filled the room with sporadic light, enough to make all the shadows dance and sway.

From one of those erratic shadows came Lucifer.

He stepped into the light before Clark and Maya and swooped into a low bow. When he straightened, a smile creased his pale, haunted face, and his black eyes gleamed in the warm light. He wore a spotless, perfectly tailored tuxedo and bow tie, which he smoothed with a quick tug.

“I’m so glad you’ve finally arrived,” Lucifer said, his attention never wavering from Clark, like he was forcing himself to not look at Maya. He turned and called over his shoulder, “Sweet Cami, our guests have arrived for the evening!”