Fallen Angel of Mine (38 page)

Bella gasped. "Stop! Stop! I just
recognized this thing!"

Pokito wiggled his magic wand, but it
was too late. The blue cinder crossed the woven channels carved in
the stone and spilled across them like azure, glowing water. A
bright red light burst from the lines. Bella's globe of light
warped and distended like a sun being sucked into a black hole.
White energy poured from the other staffs and wands. The sorcerers
slumped and fell to the floor, puppets with cut strings. A slight
dizzy spell hit me and I suddenly felt a strange vacuum in my body.
But it wasn't anything I'd experienced before, not the ravenous
hunger I felt when my supernatural stomach craved
sustenance.

I had no idea what I'd just lost, or if
this trap we'd just fallen into was sapping strength from all of
us. The etching absorbed the last whirling dot of Bella's light
globe. For a second, the glow from the trap bathed us in a surreal,
bloody light. Then it winked out and pitch black claimed us like an
infinite ocean.

All around us, whispers rolled in with
the dark tide.

It sounded like we were surrounded. The
echoing whispers seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. The
dark pressed into my body like a physical force, blocking and
choking all my senses. My heart turned to ice while my bowels
seemed to liquefy. I fumbled on the ground where Bella had fallen
and found her, warm and breathing. For now. She gripped my
hand.

"My staff," she said, her voice
high-pitched with worry.

I scraped my hands blindly along the
smooth stone floor until they touched carved wood. I grabbed it and
handed it to her. She spoke a spell. A tiny spark lit the room for
an instant, just long enough to hurt my eyes. A brief screech went
up from somewhere nearby and I suppressed a girlish
scream.

"The rune drained us," Bella said. "I
only recognized it at the last moment because I remember seeing one
in pictures taken at Thunder Rock just before the Arcane Council
interdicted it."

"Light, we need light!" Elyssa said,
somewhere off to my right.

"We can't make any," Curtis shouted.
"My internal well of energy is empty. My staff and wand are
completely dry."

"We have all we need," Beck said in a
mocking voice. "Who needs flashlights when you have sorcerers. You
idiots!"

I unslung my backpack.

"Something has me!" Curtis said, his
voice rising in pitch. "Oh god, it's so cold." His teeth chattered
so loudly I heard them over the whispers.

"I've got you," Alejandro
said.

"Let go of me, you bastard," Fausta
shouted, presumably at a specter and not Alejandro—unless Beck had
decided to make a move and pinched her butt.

More shouts joined hers, including my
own, as icy tentacles latched onto my legs. Someone screamed bloody
murder, as if he were being tossed into molten lava, but I couldn't
tell who it was. The horrific, draining cold clamped into my
muscles, sending waves of uncontrollable shivers vibrating through
me. My teeth chattered like jackhammers. It was all I could do to
unzip my backpack with uncooperative fingers. I dug inside and
gripped my emergency provisions. Sorcerers could tell me all day
long how great they were and how they could handle everything. I'd
learned something valuable in my short but violent life—being
prepared was much better than blindly accepting assurances other
people give.

I had Elyssa to thank for
that.

My hand closed on a flare as a female
screamed in counter-harmony to whichever guy was still shrieking
his lungs raw. I pulled it free from the backpack. More tentacles
wrapped around my thigh. The whispers grew to an excited crescendo
while my energy levels drained into cold oblivion. I squeezed shut
my eyes. Jerked the plastic cap off the top. Blinding light
exploded. Blinding and glorious. The brilliance hurt even through
my eyelids. The awful screeches of the shadow people almost
overwhelmed our own cries of pain. The numbing cold on my legs
vanished.

Bella stopped mid scream. Curtis curled
into a fetal position, shivering violently, while the others looked
dazed. Pokito, however, kept screaming. His wide eyes focused on
something only he could see and he sounded like a sharp-clawed
wildcat had him by the balls. I shook him. Didn't help. I slapped
him. His scream shut off like a dead radio.

I set the flare atop the rune trap to
see what would happen. It didn't so much as flicker. Apparently, it
only affected magic.

"I was blind," Elyssa said. "I couldn't
see anything. My night vision never came on."

"Mine either," Fausta said, still
shivering.

It hadn't occurred to me during the
panic, but mine hadn't either.

"Some of your abilities use magic
energy to work," Bella said. "The rune drained us."

Beck picked up a rock and crushed it in
his hand. "But I still have strength."

Bella nodded. "Your strength doesn't
rely solely on magic. Instead, magic altered your body, made it
stronger. For some reason, night vision is one of those things that
uses magical energy as opposed to your eyes being altered. Or so
goes the theory."

Elyssa squatted next to me and touched
my shoulder. "Thanks."

I almost took her hand in mine and
kissed it. Somehow, I resisted the instinct before I lost a hand to
her sword. "Someone close to me showed me the importance of always
being prepared."

"Your father?"

I shook my head. "You."

Her lips tightened, but she didn't take
my head off. Instead, she asked, "What else do you have in that
backpack?"

I pulled out several clamshell LED
lanterns, unfolded them from their almost flat state, and showed
her the stash of flares in the bag. "Enough to get us out of here."
I actually had Lina to thank for the supplies. Despite her town
being full of Arcanes, it still relied on electrical power, and
keeping a magical light globe lit during their frequent power
outages wasn't always possible.

She smiled. "If I taught you, I
obviously did a great job."

I thought about the recording on my
phone. What if we didn't make it out of here? What if I died
without ever kissing my beloved ninja girl again? I wanted to show
it to her so badly, but by now, everyone else was staring intently
at the two of us and now was definitely not the time. I cleared my
throat and forgot whatever it was I'd been about to say.

Instead, I decided we should abandon
our attempt to find Vadaemos before someone died. "Is everyone
okay?"

Bella touched my arm and smiled
gratefully. "I'm glad you decided to ignore my assurances,
Justin."

I grinned back. "Maybe we should get
the hell out of here now."

"Are you kidding?" Beck said. "We've
come this far. I want to nail the son of a bitch who put this thing
here." He jabbed his finger at the rune and spat on it.

"We seem to be well provisioned,"
Fausta said, looking over my stash. "I am fine with moving
on."

Curtis took a look at Pokito
who lay twitching in a puddle of his own vomit and shook his head.
"We need to go back. I
knew
this was foolish."

Just lovely. We'd run into our first
major problem and Ginger Gandalf was the crybaby who wanted to go
home. I had to admit, I was a tiny bit impressed with Beck's desire
to push on.

"Least we know why the survey teams
never made it any farther than this," Alejandro said. "Or why the
other ones never returned."

Bella shuddered. "I'm feeling better
now, Curtis. Perhaps you and Alejandro can take a lantern and
return to the top with Pokito."

"No way," Alejandro said. "I want to go
on." His eyes blazed with anger and determination.

Curtis narrowed his eyes.
"If you think for a minute I'm going to retrace our route while
drained of magic
and
dragging Pokito along, you're crazy."

I opened my mouth to speak when I heard
a snuffling noise from behind us, somewhere up the curving tunnel.
All heads swiveled toward it. A roar like no other echoed down the
passage and everyone except the catatonic Pokito flinched. Whatever
we'd disturbed in the trap hole earlier was on our
scent.

There was no further argument about
which way to go, and the only words spoken were curses. Alejandro
and Curtis draped Pokito's arms over their shoulders and got him on
his feet. Thankfully, he was short and thin, so it didn't take much
strength on their part. Elyssa and Fausta took the lead with
lanterns while I handed flares to Beck and Bella in case we needed
them. The passage widened in places and narrowed in others, but
never opened into a monstrous cavern like the first part. It
meandered in gentle curves back and forth, up and down, until I
wondered if it was leading anywhere at all.

After an interminable time, I heard the
patter of water somewhere ahead. The sound grew louder, more
insistent, as we closed the gap between the source and us. I was
grateful the corridor never branched off, especially with the
sounds of snuffling pursuit echoing some undeterminable distance
behind us.

Moments later, we reached a precipice
spanned by a wide stone bridge. A smoothly polished ceiling arching
a story or so overhead, curved down into smooth walls and blending
into the misty black oblivion below. The chasm might have dropped
thirty feet or three hundred feet. I couldn't tell since the light
from the lanterns didn't do much to penetrate the darkness. I
smelled and tasted water in the air. Its trickles and gurgles
bounded off the unyielding walls and played havoc with my hearing.
Beck dropped one of his pebbles over the side. I never heard it
splash, nor could I have over the ambient racket.

Not much further on, the sound of
rushing water grew louder until we reached a waterfall plummeting
from a long gash in the ceiling. We had no way around it, only
through it.

"Guess this is a trap for people using
torches," Elyssa said.

"I think you're right," Bella replied,
nodding in agreement. "But it won't do much against flares or
flashlights."

"Unless something is wrong with the
water," Fausta said, staring at it suspiciously.

Beck snorted. "Or maybe this part of
the bridge is illusion and we'll fall through it."

I hadn't thought about such a
possibility since the roaring beast hot on our trail had triggered
my primal instinct to flee. Beck's observation reactivated the
rational part of my forebrain and gave me pause just when we
couldn't afford to pause. As if in answer, another roar rose above
the sound of the waterfall.

We didn't have time to dither. Without
another thought, I strode for the waterfall.

A black streak raced past
me. Elyssa. She splashed through the waterfall, vanishing into a
watery blur. Her feet abruptly went out from beneath her.
Oh god.
It was a trap. I
didn't care. Didn't even think about it. I just ran after her at
top speed. I hit the same spot and realized immediately it wasn't a
trap. When my feet flew from beneath me and I slammed down on my
stomach, I realized it was something far more mundane and simple:
slippery, wet moss.

The entire surface was like an oil
slick and utterly without friction. I had no way to stop myself. I
saw Elyssa's body twisting. Saw her hands scrabble for purchase. We
both hydroplaned toward the sloped and rounded edge of the bridge.
No ledge to grip. No imperfections to hold. We were about to find
out first-hand how deep this gorge was.

Elyssa bared her teeth in
determination. Clawed at the moss. Her fingernails scraped free
some of the slippery vegetation, slowing her down, but she would
never stop in time. I had more momentum now than she did. In a
second, I'd be on her and probably shove her right off to her death
with me close behind. This was
not
how things were going to end.

Hyper-aware instinct took over. Time
seemed to slow. I reached a hand out for hers as my body closed the
distance. She seemed to see me for the first time, and slung her
hand out to meet mine. Moss and grime coated her hands, made them
slick, and she slipped from my fingers. Her feet were at the edge.
I lunged wildly for her. This time, her hand clamped around my
forearm. Her legs went over the edge. Her torso
followed.

With my other hand, I jerked the knife
from the sheath at my side. Offered the quickest prayer in my life
to whoever was listening. Stabbed the knife into the stone with all
my strength. Buried it all the way to the hilt. I jerked to a stop
so suddenly I almost lost my grip. Elyssa's fingers dug hard into
my arm and it burned in agony at the awkward angle. But I had
her.

I had her.

I sucked in a deep breath. Tried to
jerk her back up over the ledge, but even super-strength is hard to
use without leverage.

Another hand gripped mine. "Let go of
the knife," Fausta shouted over the roar of the
waterfall.