Taken (Ava Delaney #4) (30 page)

A Guardian was
being sucked up by the ground, having stepped in something living.
It pulsed and bubbled around her, the once solid ground giving way
to something liquid. Something was eating her, I realised as horror
gripped me.

“Help me!” she
screamed again, desperation clear in her voice.

Gabe nodded,
moved behind her, and slit her throat. She gurgled for a couple of
seconds, her blood decorating those standing too close, but she was
dead before he had taken more than three steps away from her.

“What the fuck
was that?” I hissed.

Gabe shrugged.
“She asked for help. I put her out of her misery.”

“That’s not
what helping means.”

He faced me and
put his hands on my shoulders. “Tough decisions have to be made,
Ava. If you can’t make them, then I will. We can’t wait around, and
we can’t help those who fall behind. The longer we linger down
here, the more dangerous it becomes. For me more than anyone.”

“Why? Why
you?”

He gritted his
teeth, his fingers pinching me. “Do you understand who rules this
domain, Ava? This safe haven for the darkness? One of the fallen.
His nightmares come true. His fantasies made living. This is what
becomes of us if we stay too long in the darkness. You should watch
yourself, too.”

After a while,
I understood what he meant. I could feel the darkness seeping into
me, a natural occurrence from being in Hell, but the thoughts that
wormed their way into my brain were awful. I was driven with the
thoughts of the children and how their surroundings must have
affected them. How Emmett must have been affected. Mrs. Yaga’s
words came back to haunt me.

I kept my eye
on Gabe from then on. I trusted him even less than usual. I barely
trusted myself, not after I envisioned myself twisting my dagger
into Aiden’s chest all because he accidentally bumped against me.
The way he glared at me convinced me he was imagining doing the
same thing to me.

Val called to
me, and I went running, eager to get away from the alpha.

“We can’t go
this way,” she said, indicating ahead of us. “We need another gate.
Closer this time. It should be easier. We’ve passed through a
circle already.”

“A circle?”

“The places
you’ve been to have all been on the outer circle of Hell. The
further we go in, the more dangerous it is. The market isn’t on the
outer circle. It’s not a corridor or a pathway, it’s living
quarters, and it isn’t intended to be stumbled upon. Things will
get harder from this point in. Let’s just hope they haven’t moved
further in already. I think we can probably bet that they already
know we’re coming. But even if they don’t, they used to send us out
on patrols. We could meet a patrol on our way, so keep an eye
out.”

“How far in
will we have to go?”

She gave an
empty smile. “Fortunately, not so far that we could never leave.
But we have to hurry. We’ve made our presence known. More will come
of their own accord, out of curiosity. We passed one ring on foot,
but you need to bring us closer, to cut them off.”

I quickly
spread the word. The news travelled down the line efficiently and
quietly. I was almost impressed. I leaned against a wall that
didn’t feel protected in any way and pushed my fingertips into the
old, crumbling stone. But try as I might, I couldn’t focus long
enough to create a gateway.

“Val, can you
hold on to me again?” I asked, hearing the strain in my voice. If
we were stuck…

To my surprise,
Lucia touched me, sending me an image of the market itself. It was
weak, but between that and the pictures Emmett had drawn, I had a
good mental image.

As before, I
sought out the market, and I found myself shooting through darkness
until I came to a sudden stop. I saw the entrance, but when I made
to return to my body, I got stuck again and struggled to get back
for a few moments. My soul twisted and turned frantically for
release, and finally, I loosened myself and made it back into my
body.

The gate was
harder to release, and I fought to keep it open for everyone. I
urged them to hurry as I sweated profusely, my entire body shaking
with the exertion, and even Coyle moved without argument. I felt
shaky and knew I wouldn’t be able to keep opening gateways
indefinitely. Everything had a price.

We were getting
closer to danger. I could feel it under my skin, a drumbeat
underfoot, and the heat was unreal. I wasn’t sure if it was a
figment of my imagination or not, but my hands were slick with
sweat, and my dagger moved easily in my fingers, slipping in my
grasp.

We found
ourselves in a darker place. There was more noise. That drumbeat
hadn’t been a fantasy; it vibrated under my feet. I wondered where
it was coming from. The hallway was a lot wider, slanting downward,
and we were able to group together. The Guardians managed to flank
Val and Lucia, and Lorcan and I were left to stick together in
front. Esther occasionally joined us, but for the most part, she
stuck with the other shifters as they used their combined skills to
keep a nose on any potential danger.

“Getting
closer,” Val panted. “Something will come before the end. Be
aware.”

The something
that came turned out to be a childlike creature, pale and small,
defenceless looking. But it spoke in violent tongues, telling me
how useless I was, regurgitating every horrible memory I had
buried. By the looks on everyone’s faces, we all heard our own
specific stories. Our pasts were dragged to the fore and used
against us. Its words drove wedges between the Guardians. One
frustrated shifter ran at the creature, hoping to scare it off, but
when he grew close, the figure changed shape, and the shifter drove
his sword into his own stomach, collapsing to the ground in a pool
of blood.

We were warier,
but we couldn’t fight the tiny creature, not when it knew
everything about us.

Finally, Gabe
took a crossbow and sent an arrow directly through the child’s
heart. The child exploded into a flock of black birds that flew
over our heads, pecking as they went. All of our fears went with
it.

Some laughed,
others cried, but all of us were shaken. There were worse things in
hell than hell hounds. That was a certainty.

“They are
wards,” Val said. “We won’t find it until we get past the
wards.”

“Any idea
what’s next?”

She shook her
head. “What comes depends on who approaches, and with so many of
us, who knows what will happen?”

The next ward
was a voice: no image, no sensation, only words. The words were
designed to confuse and betray, to incite hatred and suspicion. A
few succumbed, abruptly running forward in a desperate attempt at
attacking Val and Lucia, but enough volunteers assisted me and
Lorcan to render the incident unworthy of concern.

Apart from the
dead bodies. Not only had we murdered our own, we were leaving
their bodies in Hell.

Lucia soon
decided she needed to walk, but her bitten leg bled still, leaving
tiny wet trails of blood drops in her wake. I wanted to help her,
but we needed as many fighters as possible, in case anything else
attacked.

The next ward
was just for me: a door of flames, Hell of my own visions. The way
I had imagined hell had been as a fireball, basically. I had
imagined fire and brimstone, and I was getting it.

“It’s fine,” I
told them. “It won’t hurt us.”

“It won’t hurt
you because you’re as bad as the hellspawn,” a panicked voice said.
“What of the rest of us? It’s a trap, a—”

The voice was
cut off with a wet sound, but I refused to look around and see what
had happened. I didn’t want to know what we were doing to each
other.

“We’re almost
there,” Val urged. “One more door, and we’ll be out of the tunnels.
Show them the way.”

I passed
through the fire, feeling no heat from the flame, and found myself
creating yet another doorway. I stepped through, keeping my eyes
wide open, and suddenly I was in a different place, a wide open
space. Everything was murky, burgundy and violet, even the sky, a
stark reminder of a place I had once been, the place I had first
gotten stuck on my search for Becca.

Suddenly
terrified, I hurried back to the others, wary of being left alone.
“It’s fine,” I said. “Nothing’s there.”

There were no
offers to go through. Nobody said a word.

“You’ll have to
go through eventually,” I said after a minute.

“I’ll go
through first,” offered a tall shifter.

Aiden wasn’t
happy about the unauthorised offer of assistance, but he didn’t
stop the young man from passing through the door I created. The
shifter didn’t hesitate, but a terrible scream erupted as he passed
through, and everyone backed away.

Aiden’s eyes
seemed to bulge out of his sockets as he confronted me. “You said
it was safe!” He pushed me against a wall, his blade at my
throat.

“It was. When I
passed through, nothing was there. Back off, Aiden! We could all
end up stuck here for this.”

“I’ll go
through,” Val said in a tired voice. She did, and we heard more
screams, but after a few horrified seconds of silence, she popped
back through, a wry look on her face. “He’s standing there
wondering why he’s alone,” she said. “Nothing happened to him. He
didn’t scream.”

“More tricks,”
Lorcan said. “When does it end?”

“Soon,” I
promised. “We’re almost there.” I felt the children closer, could
almost hear whispers. Maybe it was more trickery, but I had a good
feeling in my gut.

We moved on,
slower, more carefully. It was as if everyone realised the biggest
battle was yet to come, and our numbers had shrunk already.

The area had
become as large as a football field with a darkened sky and a
breeze that stung as if filled with miniscule shards of glass. I
glanced at Lorcan and saw tiny bloody dots all over his face.

“Straight on,”
Val said, and she broke into a slow jog, helping Lucia along.
Lorcan nodded at me, and we flanked her together, looking around
warily. I heard the others behind us, but everything sounded
dulled, smothered. Their heartbeats and their footsteps were muted,
as if they were covered in something that muffled the sounds of
their existence.

I saw odd
shapes in the distance, but I couldn’t make them out. As we ran, my
sides ached, and my chest made wheezing noises, as if the air was
too thin for my lungs to process. We didn’t slow down, and I soon
saw that the figures were really trees of fire, circling a mound
marked by a burnt scarecrow. When we got closer, I discovered that
the scarecrow was the body of a person, and I shuddered to think of
what else we might find.

I turned in a
circle, taking in the scenery, if it could be called that. I could
no longer see where we had come from, but the path we had walked
upon resembled scorched grass, as if we were tearing and burning up
the ground with our presence.

Sounds came to
me all at once, and my fingers twitched at the idea that I could
have lived there, could have been brought up there.

“Here,” someone
called, interrupting my thoughts. “Steps down.”

“I’ll go
first,” I said, really wanting to heave. I took hesitant steps into
the darkness, catching one last glance of the muted violet sky. Val
was first in line to follow me. Our way down was lit by torches,
but something about the darkness couldn’t be penetrated, as if it
were one large, thick, mass-filled substance. I heard water, and
the air grew damper, until I reached the foot of the steps and came
to my first guard.

Val and I took
care of the hell hound. It was too easy. He was smaller than the
others, and he barely fought back.

“A younger one.
New-blooded,” Val guessed, but she frowned.

We moved on,
the group pulling together as if one unit again. I heard shouts as
we passed into a cavernous habitat where small figures lay on
makeshift beds in the distance. A number of guards approached, but
as the closest one broke into a run at me, he froze, eyes bulging,
and choked out a sound. He fell to the ground, the back of his head
caved in.

A teenage boy
stood there, long dark hair falling into his grey eyes. He tossed
his head and threw down a weapon that looked a lot like Val’s.

“Don’t hurt the
children,” he said.

Twenty guards
came for us, and I wondered that there weren’t more. After all, the
children were worth money. We cut through them, but they all seemed
to go after the teenage boy, so I shoved him behind me and went
ballistic on the rest of the guards, careful not to let them back
near the sleeping figures.

The guards gave
up the fight too easily, and as I dodged a half-hearted strike, I
became aware of Lucia and Gabe taking the boy back toward the other
children. Using my dagger, I slashed faces, weaving in and out in
an attempt to weaken the hounds. I blinded one and regretted it. We
needed them to talk, not to hate us for maiming them.

Soon it was
over. Too soon, a suspicious little voice in my head said. The
guards were overwhelmed and the survivors arrested. We were down to
twenty, and as we approached the children, I realised at least
fifty of them were sleeping there, guarded by about a dozen women.
Not warriors, they seemed like caregivers.

Some of the
women fought us, refusing to allow us to approach the children, but
they were soon subdued. Most begged us not to harm the children,
and those we brought with the kids. Almost all of the children
slept, apart from the teenagers who had been given work at the
market, and the rest of my group carried the smaller ones while I
sought a good place to go.

Lucia gripped
my hands and showed me our original meeting place. More Guardians
were there, anxiously waiting our return.