I pushed him away from me and started back up the trail, forcing myself to keep a steady pace despite the incline. The rain made the slope slippery, and the higher we climbed, the colder it got until the rain wasn"t rain anymore but a snotty slippery slush.
An hour pa.s.sed, and then another, and it seemed that we weren"t getting any closer. My legs shook with each step, and even Liam was breathing hard. Two hours, jogging straight up a mountainside, was not something I did on a regular basis.
Worse though, Calliope was slipping, the despair stealing away the fight in her to survive.
I refused to believe that Liam was right. That we wouldn"t make it in time.
Hang on, Calli. Just hang on.
There was a pause, like someone taking a breath on the other end of the phone.
And then a bright shining thread of hope swirled between us. No words, no thoughts, just an emotion so warm and full of life that it took everything I had not to give a fist pump. Ah, f.u.c.k it.
I jammed my fist into the air, then put my head down and powered up the next fifty feet.
"She"s alive ... and she knows we"re coming."
"That"s great. But we have a problem." Liam caught up to me and spun me around. Maybe two hundred feet behind us, the ogres had caught up. How the h.e.l.l had they snuck up on us? I"d been Tracking them!
The red-skinned ogre gave me a wave of his fingers and a wink I could see even from that distance.
It took me a second to put two and two together. Of course, certain ogres had magic and if the Lighteaters could mess with my abilities, masking their presence, then likely the ogres could too. And the triplets had known right away what I was and what I could do.
Apparently, my secrets were out.
With a single finger, I waved back.
Laughter rumbled through their group and up to us. We were in trouble. They were too close, and ... .
There was no sound as the Roc curled around the mountain. The ogres froze, stilling their huge bodies. Between a Roc and a horde of ogres, which were we more likely to survive?
"Trust me." My eyes met Liam"s for a brief second, as I plucked a small blade from my boot, then spun and threw it toward the Roc as it drew close, the blade not doing any harm as it caught the beast in the belly.
But it got its attention. Oh, s.h.i.t did it ever.
The Roc arced toward us, mouth open, wide eyes trained on us without blinking. There was no sound though, no growl, no thunderous roar. Not even a whoosh of wings. If I hadn"t been looking at the big b.a.s.t.a.r.d, I wouldn"t have known it was there.
"Dodge the teeth, but let it catch us!" I yelped, as we scrambled out of the way, just barely dodging the open mouth.
"Good idea, Rylee!" His sarcasm was not lost on me. Liam grabbed me, pulled me out of the way of one claw. But we couldn"t dodge the other. Which was exactly what I was hoping for. Kinda.
The grey-green talons closed around us like a bear trap snapping shut, crushing us against one another, and clamping on us in a breath-stealing squeeze. With a sudden, ear-shattering screech, the Roc soared back above the mountain. From below, the ogres still didn"t move, but I could see the smiles on their faces. They thought we were toast. The Roc"s wings moved silently in the falling snow, its body shivering. Three wing beats and we had climbed almost to the top of the mountain.
"Rylee, please tell me this is a part of your plan. That you have a plan." Liam squirmed against the Roc"s claws that held us tight.
I smiled over at him as the top of the mountain drew closer and the Roc began to descend to a depression between two plateaus near the snow-covered peak. The air was thin, cold, and not suited to the Roc"s nature.
"Actually, this time I do. I was tired of walking."
His jaw dropped. "Are you serious?"
The Roc gave us a squeeze and then it was landing. With a flick of its talons, it sent us tumbling over the thick crust of hot snow ... wait, what the h.e.l.l?
I didn"t have time to wonder at the hot mush below us. We had a Roc to deal with. Before I could get to my feet, Liam scrambled to my side and wrapped his arms around my body, holding me to the ground.
"The ogres didn"t move and it didn"t see them." Our bodies sunk into the hot mud and I stared, silent and unmoving, at the Roc who tipped its head sideways, not unlike Eve when she was considering something. Two steps toward us, head c.o.c.king again, eyes blinking, the triple eyelids fluttering closed one after another and then opening back up one at a time. Creepy f.u.c.ker.
It let out a screech, three feet from our heads. My eardrums rattled, and it felt like the left one might have popped, but both Liam and I held still. Held our breath. Sunk deeper into the uncomfortable hot mud.
d.a.m.n, this was like some sort of Jura.s.sic Park remake. The big leathery bird held its head there, waiting for us to give ourselves away.
The Roc stepped back, giving up on it meal. Or so I thought.
It strode to the far side of the overheated area and settled down into the mud. But no, it didn"t close its eyes. It stared in our direction, eyes wide and again unblinking. Several minutes pa.s.sed, and my ears slowly stopped ringing.
"Liam." I kept my voice pitched low and soft, and the Roc didn"t twitch.
"Yes?"
"Not how I imagined my day going."
"Really? I expected something along these lines. I"m actually surprised it"s mud and not s.h.i.t we"re up to our necks in."
I shouldn"t have found that funny, not with how dire our situation was. Yet there I was, sides shaking, fighting the laughter that bubbled up.
Liam"s arms tightened on me. "Track Calliope."
I did as he said, and the contact with her threads sobered me like a dash of cold water. She was still hopeful, but the pain coursing through her made her weak, the fear that had slipped away from her was building once more. But close now, she was right below us, inside the mountain and so d.a.m.n close.
Well s.h.i.t, how the h.e.l.l were we going to get out of this? Sucked down in the mud, I knew that getting out would be hard and would slow us enough that the Roc would have no problem picking us off.
"There"s a drop down into a lower level, and the opening is too tight for the Roc," Liam said. "I think we can make it."
He was right. An opening the size of a small car was close enough that potentially we could make it through before the Roc snapped us up.
"Not unless we slow him down."
Which we could if we gave him something nasty to chew on. A plan, yes a plan, formed quickly. s.h.i.t, it wasn"t perfect, but it was all I had.
"Can you reach either of my swords?"
Under the mud, Liam worked his hand up to one of my swords. "Yes."
I reached back through the thick mud and grabbed the other handle. "We pull them as we stand, and when he gets his mouth close to us-"
"Rylee, you"re crazy, you know that?"
"Yeah, I do. But it"ll work." G.o.ds, I hoped that I was right, that it would indeed work.
Liam let out a slow breath. "I hope you"re right."
G.o.ds help me if I ever lost Liam; there would never be another like him, no matter what Doran said.
"On the count of three." I tightened my grip on my sword. "One, two, three."
In tandem, we lurched upward, the mud not only slowing us down, but throwing us off balance. The Roc shot forward, mouth open wide, eyes staring wide.
Our timing, though, was perfect even if our balance was off. Liam"s blade shot upward for the top jaw as mine sliced down and through the bone and cartilage, the spelled blades driving through with ease. Teeth shattered, blood gushed and the Roc backpedaled, mud spraying all over us. We scrambled, fighting against the mud to get to the opening and the drop.
But I wasn"t looking forward, my eyes trained on the flailing, bleeding Roc, and when Liam missed the step down, I tumbled after him. Stairs cut into the mountain rose up to smash into me as I slid down them, the mud coating us acting like a f.u.c.king slippery slide.
The stairs curled and I got a glimpse of something bright red and bubbling, a swirl of a brown cloak and a flash of Calliope"s bright white coat.
We hit the ground and Liam was on his feet first. "Rylee, you aren"t going to believe this. h.e.l.l, I can"t believe it."
I rolled to my feet, sword still in hand, and turned to see what he was talking about.
He was right, I didn"t believe it. Not for one second.
DANIELS, MY NEMESIS from London, stood slack-jawed in front of an open pit that looked to go straight into the heart of the mountain. Or, more accurately, the G.o.ds-be-d.a.m.ned big a.s.s, half awake volcano. A deep rotten egg, gag-inducing, tongue-coating scent of sulfur lay heavy in the air. Being deep in the mud up top must have kept the smell from us. Because there was no way we could miss it where we stood.
"Couldn"t you have picked a place that didn"t smell like goblin s.h.i.t? Seriously." I sidled toward Calliope, huddled in the corner. Not that I didn"t want to run Daniels through, but my main objective was the foal, bringing her home to her parents and freeing Eve. Priorities, and Daniels was low on the list right now.
She lifted her hands, her voice deepening as she intoned something I"d heard before. "It is the heart of the mountains that we will p.r.i.c.k, and the land will know Orion"s fury for being condemned to the seventh veil. He shall cleanse the land with fire for his coming."
Wait ... that was what Agent Valley had asked us about, before we"d left London. I was an idiot. Why hadn"t I listened? Too b.l.o.o.d.y ready to run away, to hide from the prophecies ... and now I was paying the price, as would Calliope if I didn"t get her out of here.
Daniels smiled at us, her eyes wild with the power she"d been given. We had to take her out. Possession might seem like a good idea at first, a demon giving their vessel fantastic abilities, but it wouldn"t be long before Daniels found out that she"d gotten the raw end of the deal.
Liam lunged for her first, and with a flick of her hand, she wove her magic around him and lifted him into the air. I hit her hard, tackling her to the ground, but she didn"t release Liam. She kept talking as if we were having a pleasant conversation.
I moved to cover her hands with mine, take away her magic and let Liam go.
"Rylee don"t!" He yelled and I looked up. Daniels had shifted him over the middle of the pit. If I used my Immunity to block her magic ... .
"f.u.c.k!" I scrambled off Daniels, and she stood back up, brushing off her brown cloak.
"Rylee, you are the last person I expected to see here. I take it Milly did not slow you down at the castle? Orion said that she was weakening, but I"d hoped to use her a little longer."
f.u.c.k, s.h.i.t, d.a.m.n it all to h.e.l.l and back. Of course it was Milly. Yet, if she had laid the trap and Giselle was right, then Milly had tried to help us too. Which meant that maybe, just maybe, she"d been telling the truth at the coffee shop. But that was for another time, when we weren"t dealing with a psycho druid, a pit of lava, and a demon. Like some sort of twisted riddle, I had to get us all out of here. Right now, the only thing I could think about was keeping the ex-druid talking.
"Daniels, how did you get away from the Beast?"
She paused, her left eye twitching as she smiled at me. "I killed him. My master gave me the strength and now I cannot be stopped."
Liam shook his head. "Impossible."
"I don"t think you should take that tone with me, wolf. You will be far easier for my master to kill than the Beast was." Her voice was off, and it took me a moment to realize what was different about her.
"What happened to your accent?" I stepped sideways so I could get a better look at her face.
Her whole body gave a shiver and Liam dropped a few inches. My heart lurched upward. "Daniels, I"ll give you what you want, just don"t drop him."
She turned to face me and when she did, she seemed to inadvertently bring Liam with her. While he wasn"t out of danger, he was closer to the edge of the pit then he had been.
"I want your head on a pike on London bridge, I want you to suffer as I have suffered, to see your innards twisted around a stick and removed from your body inch by inch while you scream for mercy that will never come," she whispered, her lips not moving in tandem with her words. Like a poorly dubbed old school Kung Fu movie. Freaky-a.s.s demon possession.
And then she wasn"t really Daniels anymore, or at least her voice wasn"t.
"Tracker." Male, and a lower octave that she should have been able to hit, the voice rumbled out of her mouth. "Do you remember me?"
I blinked at her, and a cold sweat popped out all over my body. A memory buried deep flickered to life.
The barest whisper of a snake, Milly, and my first understanding of what I was. And then it was gone as if it had never been. I shook my head. "No. But I know who you are you nasty motherf.u.c.king piece of s.h.i.t. You"re the demon I"m going to wipe off the face of the world."
"Ah, I see your foul, unimaginative mouth hasn"t improved since last we spoke," the voice said, and Daniels stepped toward me, and then snapped her fingers without turning around. Liam dropped like a stone, down below the lip of the pit.
"NO!" I launched myself at Daniels, and when she flicked a hand at me, her magic slid off. Only it wasn"t magic the way Daniels had. It was a heavy thump of power that grasped me, and the snowflake on my chest burned, pushing the power aside.
A snarl twisted her features as the demon"s taint slid away from me. What the h.e.l.l had just happened? Didn"t matter, I would figure it out later.
He roared a wordless bellow as I body slammed Daniels to the ground for a second time. The back of her head connected with the hard rock and I thought she would be out cold.
No such luck.
She rolled and pinned me below her with a strength that was far beyond her own. And it wasn"t Daniels" eyes that stared down at me. No, these eyes were not the muddy brown I recalled. A swirling dark red fog covered the brown irises up, swallowed what was left of Daniels. I"d never seen it, but I knew it from Giselle"s teachings what I was looking at. Daniels had been well and truly possessed. There was no coming back from it, no magical ceremony that would save her from Orion. He had taken her in one fell swoop. Which, considering she had been the one tangling with him, she deserved, in my eyes.
Once a demon had you, that was it. Say good night to everything you ever knew and loved.
"You, I let you live once. Because I didn"t think you could be the one to stand between me and this world. There were others and I wiped them out one by one. Yet here you are; though I must say, your attempt is, at best, pitiful." His strength was beyond anything I could fight against, and he held me easily. He leaned in closer, eyes wide. "You don"t even know what you truly are, do you? Even I know where I come from, you don"t even have that."
"Go f.u.c.k a troll, you a.s.s hat. You aren"t going to win."
I tried to flip him off me, bucking my hips, straining against his hands with everything I had. It wasn"t enough. He was too strong. I couldn"t reach my weapons, and Liam ... G.o.ds, let him have been able to reach the edge of the pit.
Orion lowered his face to mine, his voice frosting over me, stilling my efforts. "You will belong to me; I will have to thank Milly. She tried to do me a disservice, sending the h.o.a.rfrost demon to build your immunity to a demon"s taint, but then she so kindly sends you here to me. Truly, she is a sly one."
His words. .h.i.t me and the past seemed to swallow me up. The black coven of witches and the h.o.a.rfrost demon. Milly had engineered it all? So that I would be immune to a demon that I would one day have to kill ... .
"Now you will witness firsthand my rebirth into this world. And then I will eat your soul."
Okay, panic wasn"t even close to what spun up through me. Blind with the fear that he could actually do what he said he could, I flailed, all my training going out the window. Demons were bad enough, but a soul-eater ... motherf.u.c.king pus buckets. I"d read about them, in the black-skinned book. They were at the top of the demon food chain, for good reason.
This was who Milly was bound to.
This was who I was supposed to stop.
A demon-who when he was only just possessing a body-held me down without breaking a sweat. If he came through the veils, physically came through, all his powers would be intact. I had to stop him now. This was the only chance I had.