Fallen Angel of Mine (8 page)

It was hard picturing this beautiful
fair-skinned woman, clad in an expensive red dress and fancy shoes
swimming and exploring this place. She looked like a real
diva.

Elyssa, who was definitely no diva,
pulled off her shoes and socks, looked at the water for a moment
and then stripped down to her pink T-shirt and matching Hello Kitty
boy-shorts. Kassallandra did the same, fastening her long red hair
into a tight ponytail as she walked away toward one of the small
caves pockmarking the cliffs. I suddenly wished for a bucket of
cold lake water over my head—not to mention other parts of me. I'd
seen Elyssa half-naked before, but at the time, she had been
unconscious and covered in gore from our fight with vamplings.
Having two hot, mostly naked women near me was triggering a
volcanic chain reaction in my hormones.

I caught Elyssa grinning at me, her
eyes angled ever so slightly down. "You'd better strip too," she
said and winked. "Even with our strength, wet clothing is gonna
feel like lead weights."

Kassallandra entered a nearby cleft in
the rock wall and returned moments later with waterproof backpacks
and diving masks for each of us. "After coming here several times
for my research, I decided it best to be prepared, though I never
refilled the oxygen tanks I used in the past."

"Can the hounds swim?"

"Quite literally, like fish." She
whistled at the largest hound. "Malkesh, come here, my sweet." The
hound padded over, tongue lolling and eyes vivid yellow. She took
both sides of his huge head in her hands and massaged it vigorously
while kissing him on his nose. "Prepare the way."

He ruffed a few syllables and the other
hounds appeared like ghosts from hiding places in the surrounding
boulders, one of them giving me a start as he nuzzled past. They
jumped toward the water, their hindquarters morphing into large
flippers as they dove and were gone.

"They can turn into fish?"

"In a manner of speaking," Kassallandra
said, stuffing her clothing into one of the backpacks.
"Well-trained hounds have limited morphing abilities and mine are
the best."

Wondering if they had a hellhound
category in dog shows, I tore my eyes from her snow-skinned
cleavage and stared at Elyssa's shapely bottom as she bent over her
backpack. The incubus inside me drooled with desire. Standing
strategically behind a waist-high boulder, I pulled off my own
clothes until I was down to my boxer-briefs and stuffed everything
into the backpack, strapped it tight onto my back, and hoped
against hope the second man brain in my shorts wouldn't make itself
obvious.

Elyssa graced me with a sexy, naughty
smile and a wink. I made a dash for the water as man-brain number
two tried to wink back.

"Oh, oh, cold!" I shouted, thinking I'd
wade in until I was waist deep, finding instead a steep drop-off
and plunging in up to my neck. At least it stopped the rebellion in
my underwear.

Kassallandra hopped in and squealed,
followed shortly by a screeching Elyssa.

"Follow me and stay close,"
Kassallandra said her teeth chattering. "There are a couple of
tricky spots to watch for."

It was so cold in the water I found it
difficult to breathe as my muscles clenched and refused my
commands. I looked at Elyssa, expecting to see her Templar training
keeping her calm and reserved. Instead, her teeth clacked away at
full speed. "C-c-cold," she said, her entire body
shivering.

"Once we start moving, our bodies will
heat up," Kassallandra said, pulling her mask down.

Elyssa nodded and did the same, forcing
herself to take deep breaths.

I pulled the diving mask over my face,
making sure it was tight and peered under the water. My
night-vision kicked in after a moment, but failed to reveal much of
anything except a few startled fish. Kassallandra and Elyssa each
grabbed a large rock from the side of the lake, took deep breaths,
and plunged under the water. I gripped the largest rock I could
find—a small boulder, really—and sucked in a few breaths to fill my
lungs.

With trembling hands, I pulled the
large chunk of granite to me, gulped down one last big breath, and
pushed off. The boulder dragged me quickly into the dark depths,
the water pressure increasing until it felt like tiny needles in my
eardrums. The chill in the water deepened, covering my body like an
icy glove. Even with my night vision, the murky water obscured
everything past twenty feet, so any random fish scurrying into view
nearly gave me a coronary.

I looked for Kassallandra
and Elyssa but saw no sign of them. Worry gnawed at my stomach
because I didn't know where the hole in the lakebed was supposed to
be. For all I knew it could be in the middle somewhere. Why hadn't
I asked Kassallandra for a precise location?
Just great
. I was going to be groping
around the bottom while my breath ran out and the others waited in
the air pocket. My worry sprouted into low-level panic as I
realized I didn't know where the air pocket was either.

What kind of an idiot was I not to ask
where these very vital things were, or at the very least follow
Kassallandra down the instant she dove? Thankfully, my lungs still
felt fine, and I didn't seem to be in any danger of running out of
oxygen just yet.

My boulder finally clunked
against the rocky surface of the bottom. I released it and I looked
about for a hole. Instead, I spotted a silvery length of chain
bolted to the granite lakebed. I gripped the chilly metal and
pulled myself hand-over-hand along it for about twenty feet until I
reached the end. At its terminus, a ragged gap in the granite
yawned into pitch black. I pulled myself down past a relatively
thin lip of rock and found another chain bolted into the ceiling of
the cavern beneath
.

When I reached the end, I came upon a
space considerably larger than an air pocket. In fact, Kassallandra
and Elyssa stood inside a perfectly square room, shivering, arms
crossed over their chests. A warm yellow glow suffused the
walls.

"Finally!" Elyssa said, springing
toward me, pressing her cold wet skin to mine. "I was worried you
missed the chains or something."

I kissed her, pressing a hand to the
small of her back and finding a patch of bare skin beneath the
backpack and shirt. Kassallandra's eyes glinted with what I
interpreted as amusement. Or, she could have felt like hurling her
lunch for all I knew. That woman was way too serious.

"Where's the light coming from?" I
asked, looking at the ceiling for a bulb or other
source.

Kassallandra shrugged. "I assume
whatever lights this place also prevents the water pressure in the
lake from flooding it."

Whatever lit the room also gave it some
warmth, for which I was grateful. My nipples were hard as icicles
and both females had their metaphorical brights on—not that I
minded all that much.

Elyssa pressed herself to me and
shivered. "I hate to think we have more to go."

Her soft curves were enough to override
the cold water and part of me began to respond. Her eyes flared and
a devilish grin lit her face.

"Unfortunately, I don't have chains
leading all the way to the exit," Kassallandra said, thankfully
unaware of the developing situation. "We'll follow one more down
toward the circle. Near the edge of the wall is a tunnel leading
into an underground river. The current isn't very strong, but there
are some very sharp rocks. Once you hit the river, you can swim up
a few feet and you'll find the surface. There is plenty of room,
for the most part, until you arrive near the end and then you'll
have to duck under a shelf of rock, follow the river through a
tunnel about fifty feet, and eventually exit a hole in the side of
a granite cliff a short distance outside of the quarry."

My second brain abruptly withdrew at
the thought of all the water and sharp rocks between me, a warm
bed, and my hot girlfriend. "I thought this was an easy swim," I
said, grumbling. "My nerves don't enjoy hearing words like 'for the
most part' and 'eventually' when it involves the possibility of
drowning and-or being shredded against sharp rocks."

Kassallandra raised an uncaring
eyebrow. "For a human it would be rather treacherous. For us, it
should be nothing more than a long inconvenience."

"Let's get this over with," Elyssa
said.

I squeezed her tight. "Be careful, hot
stuff."

She patted my rump. "You
too."

Kassallandra sighed.

"I guess you find our involvement
disgusting," I said to her, thinking about the way she'd reacted
when speaking of Mom and Dad's marriage, not to mention calling me
an abomination.

"I find it very unsettling any time a
Daemos enters a relationship with a human, no matter the type.
However, since you are half-human, it may not be quite so
repulsive."

"Why thank you very much for your
approval," I said with a mocking half-bow. "I'm glad you don't care
if humans date abominations."

Her eyes crystallized into a pale blue.
"You asked my opinion, boy, and I gave it." She stepped into the
water. "Now, shall we get on with it?"

I took a deep breath and made sure to
follow our flame-haired guide much closer this time. As we took the
chain bolted to the bottom of the cavern, something black flashed
past in my peripheral vision. A quick glance revealed nothing but a
dark expanse of water just outside the range of my blue-tinged
night vision. Elyssa and Kassallandra had pulled ahead of me by a
few feet during my look around so I hurried to catch up.

Something I couldn't quite make out
hovered in the murk a few feet from the chain. I stopped and peered
closer but the darkness hid its identity. It was probably a fish, I
figured. Of course, I had flashbacks to every scary movie I'd seen
with giant man-eating fish in them. I renewed my effort to catch up
with the girls again as fear colder than the water around me twined
around my bowels. A glint of yellow in my night vision drew my
attention yet again to the side. Despite my unease, I pushed off
the chain and swam a few feet forward. A black shape rotated slowly
in the water, strands of something cloudy trailing from it. I
pressed forward another foot and bit back a sudden gasp that
would've sucked water into my lungs. I knew what the black shape
was.

The head of a hellhound.

I jetted for the chain, legs kicking
furiously to get away from the gruesome sight and to warn the
others that something was down here with us. The chain shuddered
and jerked. I flew down the length of it, desperate to catch sight
of the women again.

I spotted them near the bottom,
surrounded by three giant-looking fish. I realized with relief that
the fish were, in fact, the hellhounds, or maybe they were hellfish
now even though their front halves definitely appeared canine,
paws, muzzle and all.

Kassallandra reached the tunnel at the
base of the chain and gripped the largest of the hellhounds, the
one she'd called Malkesh. He jetted into the tunnel, pulling his
mistress along for the ride. Elyssa looked back up the chain at me,
her eyes glowing like violet fire in the darkness.

Something brushed my leg. Something
infinitely colder than the water around me. I bottled up the shout
threatening to burst from my lungs. At this point, I felt a slight
burn in my chest as my body devoured the oxygen thanks, in no small
part, to the terror hammering in my chest.

Elyssa's eyes widened. She jabbed her
finger over and over at something to my right. I looked that way in
time to see a black blob twisting and churning straight at me. One
of the hellhounds, its flipper-like appendage leaving a trail of
fine bubbles in the water, opened its jaws wide and bit the thing.
The oily-looking glob vanished into the hound's maw. I stopped
staring and frantically pulled myself hand-over-hand down the
chain.

A gurgling yelp sounded behind me. I
turned to see the black substance oozing from the hellhound's nose,
mouth, and eyes, popping the orbs from the sockets to dangle
gruesomely by slender threads of nerves. The hound's body twisted
and turned, front paws churning at the water until, with a loud
crunch, it seemed to twist itself in half, tearing flesh and
leaving a bloody cloud in the water. A tentacle of the black cloud
speared toward me, coiling around my leg and drawing tight like a
noose.

It was all I could do not to scream as
the intense cold of its grip bit into my leg. Elyssa was swimming
for me but another hellhound pinned her between its forelegs. The
creature jerked at my foot again until I thought it might entirely
wrench off the appendage. The chain shuddered with each pull. The
lower mooring bolt snapped loose from the bedrock and suddenly I
was flying backward away from Elyssa and into the dark as my hands
glided down the slippery length of the metal chain.

I tightened my grip. The chain snapped
taut for a brief instant before breaking free of the other bolt
back at the air pocket. My heart pounded mercilessly against my
ribs and the ache in my lungs turned into an intense burn as terror
depleted my remaining oxygen supply. I had nothing to grab hold of
as the flowing black thing pulled me toward what would likely be a
horrific death.