Ruby Shadows (54 page)

I tried to push the mean little voice to the
back of my head. I could still feel Laish’s hot seed leaking out of
me and I closed my thighs tightly, wanting to erase the feeling, to
deny his betrayal.

Then a new thought occurred to me—what if
Laish had left me for good? Would I be able to close the door I’d
left open on the edge of the Abyss myself? And once I did, would I
ever get out of Hell and back home? What if I was lost down here,
wandering in the darkness forever? Or what if the HellSpawn—

Kurex’s distressed neighing pulled me out of
my morbid thoughts. I sat bolt upright in bed. What was going
on?

Pulling on the green silk
robe, I belted it hurriedly around my waist and jumped out of bed.
I was about to leave the tent when, as an afterthought, I grabbed
the
thrak.
I
didn’t like the feel of it in my hand—it almost seemed to be
thrumming as though it sensed something outside the tent—something
bad. But I felt better with some protection—even an evil-ass
knife—than nothing at all.

Clutching the knife, I ran out of the tent.
I saw that the road under the Sunless Sea—which had appeared to go
on and on forever the last time I had looked at it—now ended
abruptly. The underwater passageway had opened out into a vast
cavern which housed the Abyss.

The last time I had seen that horrible,
black, bottomless pit, it had been crawling with long, slimy dark
tentacles. This time there was nothing coming out of it. But high
up, on the far edge along a steep slope, I could see something
happening. There was a scuffle going on beside long sliver of
light. Clearly the light was coming from the door which I had left
open—a door which only I could close, according to Laish.

Speaking of Laish, was that him, struggling
with something on the edge of the Abyss? Yes, it was. And the
something he was fighting had no head—only long, yellow teeth and a
black, oozing body. It clawed at him relentlessly, trying to get a
hold on him—trying to draw him into its deadly mouth. The struggle
was hard to make out in the murky, diffused light coming from the
Sunless Sea but my eyes were used to the darkness and I was sure of
what I was seeing.

As I watched, my heart in my mouth, Laish’s
foot slipped on the loose rocks and gravel. To my horror, he
started to slide into the Abyss.

“
No! Oh, no!” I gasped,
running forward. I didn’t think what I could possibly do if I got
to him—how could I hope to have any chance against the HellSpawn
now that I had only half my strength and powers? But the thought
didn’t occur to me—I only knew I couldn’t let him fall—couldn’t let
him go. Not now…not yet.

But before I could get three steps, Laish
shouted a word of power that echoed through the whole cavern. There
was a brilliant flash of light and then he was gone—at least, the
Laish I knew was gone.

In his place was a being that had to be ten
or twelve feet tall. Or I thought he was—it was hard to tell
because he was no longer standing on the ground. Vast, black
feathered wings beat the air, causing a small hurricane around him.
His skin was dark gray like marble and his eyes were
flames—literally flames—in his face. In his hand was a fiery sword
as long as I was tall and his hair was a wreath of fire—burning
waves that moved and shifted around his face as he hovered in
place.

With one slice of the fiery sword, the
HellSpawn was cut into two writhing pieces. The being that Laish
had become threw them down into the Abyss, still quivering and
bleeding black, oily goo.

I think I may have gasped or cried out at
that point—I don’t know. All I know is that something caused him to
turn his attention to me. His face was beautiful and terrible—I
felt like looking at it for too long might cause me to go blind and
yet I couldn’t look away. I was caught—trapped in that impenetrable
gaze.

For the first time I truly understood what
Laish was—what I had allowed myself to care for. He wasn’t human,
not in the least. But he wasn’t truly a demon either—or he hadn’t
used to be.

He was a fallen angel.

Again I tried to look away and again I
couldn’t. I had suspected something like this for a long time but
to have it actually confirmed this way sent my mind reeling.

Holding my eyes with his flaming gaze, Laish
reached over with one huge hand and casually pushed the door to the
Abyss shut.

How?
my mind gibbered.
How did he do
that? He said only someone with my soul signature could shut it. So
how was he able? And what will he do now? Is he coming for
me?

For the huge, black wings, as vast and broad
as the wings on a commercial aircraft were beating slowly, stirring
a hot wind from the pit that stank of sulfur and death. He was
flying towards me.

“
Laish?” I whispered,
almost unable to get his name out. Was it really even his name? Was
he called something else in this form—in his true form? Because
this
had
to be
his true form. Even in my dazed state, I could feel the realness
coming from him—the authenticity.

This huge, flaming, beautiful, powerful,
frightening being was the real Laish. The person I had let myself
care for—the one I had given myself to—was just a shell—a façade he
put on when it was convenient for him. This being who had been
alive since the dawn of time—since the creation of the world—was
the true form of what I had thought was the man I cared for.

“
Laish?” I whispered again
as he came towards me, flying over the vast, yawning gulf of the
pit. I realized suddenly that I was standing on the very edge of
the Abyss—somehow I had been drawn forward as I watched him and now
my toes were almost at the lip of the dark hole. Sharp rocks cut
into my bare feet but I barely felt them. I drew back quickly,
getting a safe distance from the edge and noticed Kurex was beside
me. The big horse was pawing the ground and snorting at the sight
of Laish as he really was.

Had he seen this form in
battle, as he had seen the dragon? As frightening as the dragon had
been, this form was worse—a thousand times worse. The dragon was
just huge and scaly and ugly and scary—this being was
beautiful—beyond beautiful. Perfect and yet marred so deeply it
made me ache to look at him. Suddenly I remembered Belial’s
words—
His true form is a perversion of
what he once was.
Was that why it was so
hard to look at him like this and yet so impossible to look
away?

He had been flying in perfect silence but
now, for the first time, the being Laish had become spoke.

“
Gwendolyn,”
he said and his voice was like the pealing of a
thousand dark bells. On his lips, my name sounded like a word of
power—a word that could kill or destroy or maim anyone who heard it
spoken aloud. It made me flinch back and clutch the silver handle
of the
thrak
more
tightly.

Laish had told me that
black-bladed knife could kill any being in Hell. Did that include
himself in this new, frightening form? If he came for me, could I
use it to defend myself?
Was
he coming for me? How could I know the true
intentions behind that beautiful, inscrutable face, those flaming
eyes and vast, black wings? Plus, he was still holding the long,
fiery sword in one huge fist. What did he intend to do with it? It
had cut through the HellSpawn like a hot knife through butter—I
couldn’t imagine it would encounter much more resistance if it was
slicing into me.

“
Gwendolyn,”
he said again in that terrible, beautiful voice
that made me feel like I was going crazy every time I heard
it.
“Please, don’t fear me.”

“
Stay back.” I took a step
away, holding up the
thrak.
“I don’t know you like this—I don’t know what
you’re capable of and I don’t want to find out.”

“
Surely you don’t think I
would ever hurt you?”

“
You already have,” I
pointed out. “And that was when you looked like a regular person.
I’m not likely to trust you more now that you’ve turned into
this…this…whatever you are.”

The beautiful, terrible face looked sad.

“
This is my true form—the
one I feared to show you.”

“
I can see why. The other
form—the one I thought I knew—that isn’t you at all, is it? You
were this all along—this…this
being.”

“
Gwendolyn,”
he began but just then a huge, slimy black
tentacle snaked up from the Abyss and wrapped itself tightly around
my waist.

It came so quickly that I didn’t know what
to think. One minute I was standing there talking to him, the next
I was high in the air, waving over the bottomless void and
screaming.

Laish swung into action at once. He gripped
my waist, where the tentacle was wrapped around me, and cut it with
one swift slice of his sword. Even with my robe and the writhing
tentacle between his hand and my flesh, I could feel his heat
radiating over me. His touch burned but not for long—he was already
putting me back down on the ground and pushing me gently to
safety.

But another tentacle came
and then another and another—at least ten of them sliding out of
the pit like blind snakes bent on one thing and one thing
only—finding
me.

Laish cursed and stepped between me and the
searching tentacles. He hacked with long, controlled
movements—severing many with his sword but he couldn’t get them
all. The ones he missed found him instead of me, wrapping like
whips around his legs and dragging him back to the Abyss.

“
Oh my Goddess,” I
whispered, feeling frozen in place. The end of the still-twitching
tentacle was still wrapped around my waist, oozing black blood all
over my green robe, but I couldn’t move—I could only
watch.

Laish slashed more
desperately at the writhing tentacles with his sword. Some fell
away but then, the whole pit suddenly erupted—it seemed like a
thousand—
ten
thousand tentacles were waving in the air, fastening
themselves to Laish, wrapping around his arms and legs and waist
and throat, dragging him down, dragging him into the
Abyss.

“
Laish,” I gasped, my
paralysis breaking at last. Pushing the dead tentacle off my waist,
I rushed forward. I might be angry with him and frightened of the
person he had become but that didn’t mean I wanted to see him
dragged into the bottomless pit that had no ending and no beginning
to rot for eternity.

He was fighting hard, slashing in every
direction with his flaming sword, his broad wings pumping the air
desperately as he shouted words of power. But the words didn’t seem
to have any effect on the ancient, evil creatures. Then one of the
tentacles managed to wrap around the hilt of his sword and yank it
out of his hand. I saw it fall, flaming into the pit until its
light faded to nothing. And then Laish was clinging to the lip of
the Abyss, his hands scrabbling desperately, trying to find
something to hold on to, some way to keep from being dragged down
forever.

“
Laish!” I cried again. I
grabbed for Kurex’s bridle and tried to hand it to him. “Here—let
Kurex pull you out!”

“
No,”
He panted, refusing to take them.
“You’ll need him and he is not…not strong enough to withstand
the Ancient Ones.”

“
Well we have to do
something!”
I was crying
now though I didn’t know why.

“
There is nothing to
do.”
His flaming eyes looked desperate but
resigned.
“Go back to Belial. He will help
you get home.”

“
No!” I insisted. “I’m not
giving up!”

Suddenly I remembered
the
thrak
in my
hand. Raising it above my head, I started to bring it down hard on
one of the slimy black tentacles pulling Laish down.

But somehow, despite the tentacle wrapped
around his arm, he caught my wrist before I could strike a
blow.

“
No—you cannot spare any
more of your soul.”
He wrenched the black
blade from my hand, leaving me with nothing.

“
What are you
talking
about?” I
demanded. “Let me stab that thing for you—you told me you can’t use
the
thrak
yourself!”

“
Gwendolyn, get back from
the edge—it’s not safe!”

“
No!” I shouted
stubbornly, tears of frustration stinging my eyes. “No, I can’t
just watch you get dragged down. Let me help you, Laish—tell me
what to do!”

Clearly he saw how stubborn I was prepared
to be because he turned his attention to the big horse neighing and
pawing the ground beside me.

“
Kurex,”
he commanded.
“Save your
mistress! I charge you with her safety and her life.”
Suddenly the tentacles writhing around him gave a
tremendous jerk. He’d been head and shoulders above the lip of the
pit, now he was yanked down until I could barely see his
face.

“
Laish!”

“
Forgive me,”
he said, meeting my eyes with his flaming
ones.
“What I told you was true—I love
you, Gwendolyn. I will never stop lov—”
And then the tentacles gave another awful yank and he was
gone, sliding down into the Abyss. His burning eyes, filled with
sorrow and pain, were the last thing I saw and
then…nothing.