“Oh, no fear of that.”She flinched again as the entire temple shuddered, even its wings and outbuildings noticing the incursion.“They’re here.”
“Don’t worry.”The words were ashes against his tongue.“I can hold a door for a long time.”
Her hand tensed.He moved carefully so she didn’t stumble even in this absolute blackness.The Flame would give her a type of dark-vision; a fullliraicould use the eyes of the Sons around them as well as the corpselight.
But right now, she was blind.And he could only see because of the filthy mark on his wrist, the doorway he drew strength through—and the god behind it, writhing with fury, would eat her alive ifhecould.
The end of the stairs came sooner than Erik expected; he would have liked a few more seconds with her hand caught in his.Her fingers had warmed; a moment’s worth of simple sorcery flushed her with heat and she exhaled sharply.The shadowbeasts and nightmares were tearing through the temple above; they wouldn’t expect Erik and his all-but-helpless charge to godown.
“The Flame’ll come.”Was he trying to convince her, or himself?“It, ah, might not be very pleasant.”
“Neither will getting eaten by those things.”She swayed slightly on the last step, and he was glad she couldn’t see the great circular stone lid in the middle of this chamber, its surface crawling with glyphs in a language long dead.Noliraiwould see such carvings without a shudder.“Erik?”
“Yeah?”He got her to the edge, and his fingers slipped reluctantly free.“Stand very still.I have to open it up.”
“Great.”She froze, and for a long moment he examined her face.Pupils swollen in what was total darkness for her, her chin lifted, her hair a mess and her shoulders dusted with gemlike drops of melted snow, she was utterly beautiful.“I’m sorry I was mean to you.”It came out of her in a rush, as if she could feel his gaze.“It’s just… this is all so much.”
His chest hurt even worse.“It’s fine,” Erik mumbled, crouching.His hand found the space it wanted between lines of blocky carved symbols telling the story of the Breaking, whenliraiand Sons made their final stand with their backs to a blood-red sea deep in nighttime lands thelirairuled, their gleaming lost city burning and the greatest of ancient Dreamers sacrificing blood, life, and their very souls to lock the Mad God away.“Just stand very still.”
“I can hear them.”It was the whisper of a child alone in the dark.“They’re about to find us.Whatever we’re going to do, please let’s just make it quick.”
The lid shuddered; a slow, deep grinding began.Hieroglyphs twitched into motion as stone separated with clockwork precision, and if she’d been able to see it, the wrongness of the lid’s crumbling in defiance of earthly physics might have made her even more apprehensive.
Erik looked into the black hole.Of course, the Flame had retreated when it was blocked off.
He just hoped it would sense her need and come back in a hurry, or could be sparked by theoneiros.“All right.”He straightened.“Liv?—”
“Jesus,” she whispered.“They’re on the stairs.”
Shit.There was nothing else he could do.Erik’s right hand found a knifehilt, and for the first time since his initial week in the Sons’ training dormitory, his palms were damp with fear.
Now came the betrayal.
Forgive Me
If not forthe sense of Erik breathing right next to her, the tiny sounds as he shifted, and the absolute calm confidence in his voice, Liv might have done something embarrassing.Like scream, or worse—her bladder was full, her back teeth all but floating.It was probably terror doing something to her kidneys, or the morning’s latte looking for escape.
It was bad enough being chased by monsters.But to pee her pants was downrightundignified, and she loathed even the possibility.She hated everything about this, except maybe Erik.
Hadn’t he been able to produce some kind of light before, when Jake let her out of her cell for the object lesson in monster reality?Now, deep in a stone cellar, there wasn’t a single photon.Just that pitch blackness, pressing against her eyes like a blindfold.It was so dark she couldn’t even feel her fingers, and the thought that her body had been swallowed and she was simply a naked, shivering consciousness trapped in a cold black well was terrifying.
Still, it was hard not to feel charitable and a little less frightened when someone had carried you away from both a car wreck and hideous things screaming in the snow, their voices full of hard brassy hatred.Even the thought that she wouldn’t have needed rescuing if they’d just left her alone was threadbare, the kind of justification that would keep you sane but wasn’t exactly, well, truthful.
It was hardly time for a reckoning, but Liv might as well.She’d dreamed about the things chasing them, of course, almost every night since she could remember.Her sleeping head was tuned to whatever bizarre station Erik and his friends lived on, and had been all her life.Now the insanity had spilled into the daylight world, and she was stuck in it.
She might as well deal with the concept, in whatever time remained.Except she couldn’t quite figure out how, unless it was simply keeping herself from fear-based urination.
There was a deep grinding noise.Over it, the footsteps on the stone stairs beat an insistent tattoo, and the sounds were just plainwrong—some too light, some too heavy, some with a strange metal ringing and others with a clicking like dog nails on hard uncarpeted floor.
There were a lot of them, and a cold draft touched her cheeks.
It felt like there was an opening nearby, a big one.The fine hairs all over her body rose, sensing danger in the absolutely impenetrable darkness, and she wished, with a sudden vengeance, that Erik was still holding her hand.
“Jesus.”It just slipped out.“They’re on the stairs.”
“I know.”His voice was close.The cool draft intensified, stirring her hair, fingering her shoulders.Was there a tunnel?If there was, it felt like something was coming through, pushing a wall of tepid air as it accelerated, and Liv was doing her absolute best not to scream, pee, cry, or throw up.Her stomach was a seesawing fist, clenched hard.“Liv…”
“What?”For God’s sake, whatever you’re going to do, now would be a great time.“Please don’t let them eat me,” she continued, aware she was babbling.“Shoot me before they get a chance to eat me.Please.”
