“Just make sure you don’t look up if you ever hear someone shout it,” Kai said.
“That’s why I always carry an umbrella in Scotland,” Lucifer said, finally adding to the conversation.
I didn’t much like it when he was quiet. He was at his most dangerous when he wasn’t talking. Not that he was particularly helpful when he was. Lucifer was always problematic, but perhaps that was simply his nature.
“All right, so the four of us?—”
“Five,” Kai corrected. “I would like to go as well.”
“Five of us will go find the weapon and return as quickly as possible,” I said, adrenaline making my heart pick up speed.
Merri slipped her hand into mine. “Be careful.”
I lifted her hand to my lips and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
“You’d better be,” she said with a smile just for me. “You promised to feed me tonight.”
Against my will, my cock stiffened. This succubus would be the death of me.
“Where the fuckdid you bring us?” Kai complained as soon as we manifested deep within the catacombs underneath the city of Edinburgh. “I can’t even stand straight.”
I scowled at the fae. “It’s not like I made a secret of it. You’re the one who volunteered to come with us, surely you knew what you were getting into.”
He grumbled and hunched down as best he could, the top of his dark head still nearly scraping against the stones of the abandoned tunnel. Lilith was the only one among us who wasn’t similarly positioned. The tunnels under the city were low and dark, with the exception of the ones owned by tour companies who loved to shill their “haunted Edinburgh” tours. They weren’t even close to the real thing. Not like this one. This area was dripping with spiritual energy, heavy with the aura of suffering and death. I could almost smell the bodies that had once been piled up all the way to the ceiling. I wondered how many tourists realized what the city they so loved was built upon. The city had a bloody history, and for the most part, every step they took was atop a grave. Sort of a psychopath’s version of Disneyland.
Kai shivered and cast a wary look around the dark corridor. The only light came from the glowing ball of magic Crombie had conjured as soon as we arrived. It was barely enough to see by.
Pan must have agreed because he jogged a little ways away and picked up an abandoned torch. “Here,” he said, thrusting the wood into Kai’s hand. “Do your thing.”
It only took the dragon a second to breathe fire and create a second, brighter source of light.
“There’s nothing of note in this godforsaken place,” Crombie complained. “It’s empty.”
“Patience, darling. There’s something here. I can feel it in the walls, can’t you?” Lilith took his hand and closed her eyes as she touched the stone with her free palm. “Agony. Terror. Despair. They were brought down here to die. Not after they were dead.”
“Quarantine looked a lot different back then. Now we’d simply call it what it was: burying them alive.”
I gave my son a knowing look. He wasn’t wrong. But at that time, there weren’t many options. It’s what made our viruses so successful.
Lilith leveled her blue gaze on me. “What about you? What do you feel?”
It was her way of asking me where the weapon might be. Truth be told, I didn’t have a lock on any one specific point, not in the way Chaos and Grim had. This entire area was drowning in energy that called to me. For them, it had seemed like a beacon; to me, it was a sea of possibility.
“I feel it everywhere. Every granule that makes up these walls is contaminated.”
Kai frowned. “Is that safe? To bring it back with us, I mean. Many in our party are half-human. Could they still be infected?”
“No. The virus is no longer active. But it is very much present.”
“If you say so,” Kai muttered, keeping his hands as far from the walls as possible.
I didn’t blame him. No one wanted to watch the bubonic plague ravage someone they loved.
“Not to pressure you, darling, but we are on a bit of a tight schedule. Any ideas on how to hurry this along?” Lilith asked.
The short answer was no. But then instinct had me reaching out a hand to press against one of the many bricked-up sections. A tremor ran through the wall, and for a moment, I thought it was just me experiencing the sensation. But Lilith took a step back, and I followed her gaze to the ground at her feet. The smallrocks and dirt were visibly shaking, as though we were in the middle of a small but ongoing earthquake.
“Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it,” Crombie murmured, eyes intense as he scanned the area for potential threats.
