Seduced by Darkness (13 page)

authority of this lies in our wills.

— William Shakespeare, Othello

I SHOULD HAVE
fed before I got captured.

That's what I kept thinking.

As if I knew this would happen.

As if I could have stopped it.

As if it would have even helped.

The thirst was drying me out, and it hadn't been that long. Not nearly long enough to feel like this already. I suspected magic. That this prison somehow accelerated the rate at which the prisoners felt the need to feed. It was a unique kind of torture and it didn't take me long to realize I would go mad.

I analyzed my surroundings as soon as I was thrown into this hell. We floated in a concrete prison, an orb of self-contained cells that made it impossible to escape. A prison designed with Nephilim powers in mind.

I couldn't decide what would drive me mad first. The thirst, or the insanity of the prisoner to my left.

He screamed day and night. When he passed out he still screamed in his sleep. He uttered madness and nonsensical stories about Nephilim and The Gray Watcher. A savior for the Nephilim. Children's stories Beleth told Ana during their visits together. Small comfort in the reality of this world.

From the small glimpses I caught of the man, I could see the years stretching behind him hadn't been kind. He'd been beaten. Abused. Mutilated until he was hardly recognizable as a man at all. I wondered what he'd done. If he'd done anything at all.

They hadn't started torturing me yet. Unless you counted the thirst. And the madness. I did count both. But I hadn't been beaten. Just starved.

And deprived of any news of my wife and child.

Was Sam okay? Did they really release her? What happened to her after I was taken away?

I had only one consolation. That they took me in her place. That she wasn't executed on the spot. I'm not sure I could have gone on living had they taken her life. I had to hold onto the hope that she was still alive and safe and free.

And that she wouldn't do anything stupid.

Like try to rescue me.

To mourn a mischief that is past and gone Is the next way to draw new mischief on.

— William Shakespeare, Othello

ROSE PACED THE
stone room, her hands fluttering before her as she glanced at the door. "Derek should be back by now. He wouldn't stay away this long, no matter how mad he was."

Talon sat in a meditative pose in the corner. "He said he couldn't be part of this, that it went against his conscience. I don't think he's going to come back until it's over."

"I should go look for him," Rose said, stepping toward the door.

I didn't know what to do. "I understand if you need to go look for Derek. I really do," I told her. "But from our surveillance, the shift change is about to happen at the Stone Prison, and we need to act soon if we're going to rescue Drake. If you can't come, I get it. I'm okay with that. But we have to go now."

Talon walked over to Rose and smiled. "Your husband is strong and sensible. He's just cooling off. He will likely be here waiting for us when we return with your friend. But Sam is right, if we are to do this, it must be now."

"This is a safe place," Beleth said. "No harm will come to him within the walls of the Forbidden City."

Rose nodded. "I'm in. Let's go."

I squeezed her hand. "Thank you." I knew the sacrifice she was making.

Beleth carried Rose, who still couldn't shift, and Talon and I flew through the night toward the prison. It floated in mid-air like a giant rock, or an asteroid that stopped and froze above the ground. Doors and stairs were carved into the outside. Beleth explained that the inside is carved into tunnels. We made good time and arrived moments before the shift change of guards.

Beleth set Rose down on a cliff that overlooked the prison and was close enough that she could see everything we were doing. She drew symbols around herself that emanated golden light and disappeared, leaving her skin lightly aglow.

"Nothing can come in or out of this protection," she said. "I'll be safe alone."

I nodded. "I'll stay in contact mentally so you can warn us if something goes awry."

She squeezed my hand and I could feel the magic buzzing around her like living electricity. "Let's hope nothing does. Be safe."

I took a deep breath, nodded to Beleth and Talon, and we each left to initiate our part of the plan.

Beleth and Talon would take out the guards during the shift change while I went straight for the prison, to break Drake out.

I heard Beleth and Talon fighting as I snuck around the back of the prison.
"Rose, am I clear?"

"Just give it another minute or two,"
she said.

A minute or two was a very long time, suspended in the sky, in an area forbidden to us, where we could be put to death just for being here.

"Now?"

"Almost,"
she said.

My wings thrummed behind me as I waited.

"Now!"
she said.

I didn't hesitate.

I flew straight for the entrance of the prison and met Beleth there, who acquired keys from the prison guard he took down.

"Did you get the keys?" I asked quietly.

He pulled out a set of silver keys and tossed them to me. "We don't have long until they find the guards' bodies."

"You sure this will work?" I asked.

He shook his head once. "No, but we have few options."

I nodded and shoved a key into the door.

We got it unlocked. Talon was nowhere to be seen, but we couldn't wait for him. We entered and searched the dark, dank tunnels carved into the floating rock. Torches lined them, their meager light nearly absorbed by the darkness.

"Drake?" I called to him in the quietest voice I could. I tried using my mind to connect but it didn't work in here. I was cut off from all thought, all mental communications.

"Something is dulling our powers in here," I told Beleth.

"I know, I can feel it. We must hurry."

Beleth stopped suddenly in front of me and I nearly ran into him. He held up his finger to his lips and then pointed to turn in the tunnel.

Light flickered off the walls as two shadows approached.

I nodded and stepped back, my heart beating in my chest so hard it hurt.

Beleth spread his inky black wings as his hands turned from flesh into obsidian blades. As the shadows turned the corner, Beleth pounced on them, slicing their throats simultaneously before they could voice any protest over our presence.

"Couldn't you have just knocked them out?" I asked, my stomach roiling as their throats gushed life blood all over the rocky floor.

"I do not feel sympathy for these guards. They do not guard criminals, but innocent Nephilim who have displeased the Queen. They perpetuate her corrupt reign of terror on our people."

Given that my husband was one of those innocents, I didn't argue, but continued following Beleth into the belly of the beast.

As we approached the prison cells, I heard a man screaming and my heart lurched as I tried to identify him. Was it Drake? Had they already hurt him?

The man no longer sounded human and I couldn't let myself believe it was him.

We walked through the prison, avoiding the gazes of other prisoners begging for help. When I saw the back of Drake's blond head through bars, I ran to him. "Drake!"

He turned, his eyes sad, his face so very pale, and he frowned. "No, Sam, you can't be here!"

"We're here to rescue you," I told him.

Beleth searched through the keys and inserted one into the lock.

Just as he did, a loud noise blared through the air and the whole prison filled with smoke.

"Sam, you have to leave. The prison is going to shut down. You can't save me," Drake said.

Beleth reached for me. "The key isn't working. It must be the wrong one. Drake's right, we can't get him out. We have to leave and regroup, or we will be imprisoned along side him and there will be no one left to save any of us."

I didn't want to leave. Couldn't stand the thought of abandoning him here when we were so close, but we were choking on the smoke and the alarms were getting louder.

I let Beleth lead me out. Suddenly, five guards turned the corner, blocking our path.

Beleth once again spread his wings, turned his hands into weapons and flew at them, knocking them aside. As two of them tried to stand he impaled them each with his hands. The other three attacked and Beleth moved fast, positioning himself so that he wasn't surrounded. "Fly, Sam! Get the others and get out. I'll catch up!"

I flew past him and mentally connected with Rose.
"We failed. We need to find Talon and meet back at the City."

I found Rose on the perch of the cliff and grabbed her, but I couldn't find Talon. We had to leave him behind. He'd make his own way out. As, I hoped, would Beleth.

When we arrived back at the Forbidden City, Talon was waiting for us. Beleth arrived shortly after and we regrouped back in Red's den. The crystal light cast dim shadows on the ground.

Beleth took stock of us. "What became of you, Talon?"

"I was disarming guards throughout the prison," he said, "but then the alarms went off and I had to fight my way out."

Beleth nodded and looked to me.

I choked back tears of frustration and fear. "What are we going to do? Rescuing him is impossible."

Talon stood and looked at us. "We must kill the Twilight Queen. It is the only way."

Though in the trade of war I have slain men,

— William Shakespeare, Othello

THE MORE I
struggled, the more the vines and rocks dug into my skin, holding me down. Keeping me prisoner. The body of the teen boy Talon killed lay a few feet away, the corpse drawing flies as his blood stained the mountain.

How many had Talon killed? What was his game? Why eat them? I had so many questions. So many fears. I had to get out of here.

I screamed until my throat grew hoarse, but no one could hear me. I'd made sure of that in my sulky need to escape everyone. Idiot.

When footsteps landed behind me, I tried to turn, but I couldn't.

I could feel the wind shift as wings drew closed and a figure in gray stepped in front of me. An Emzara. His face was masked, body covered in gray armor.

"Help me," I said.

Without a word he cut away the vines, even as they kept growing. But he was fast. Too fast for the vines to keep up. I helped, shifting into a wolf and biting my way out as he created a path.

Without me as their focus, the vines died and withered into the ground.

"The Druid did this to you," the Emzara said through his mask.

"Yes. You saw?"

He nodded.

"My friends are in danger. We have to stop Talon and warn everyone."

"I will help as I can, but I am bound by certain laws. I cannot fight the Nephilim. I am forbidden."

I nodded and we ran into the Forbidden City to find Rose and warn them.