Chapter 14
They had chartered a private plane bound for Paris. The cabin was quiet. Síofra had curled herself into one of the leather seats, trying to convince her stomach that this was luxury, not a flying disaster.
Morgan stretched out across from her, trying to soothe her jangling nerves. “If we’re going to dig around the catacombs all night, at least we’ll land rested.”
Somehow ,she knew his wolf did not like flying either.
Just before they crossed the Channel, Morgan’s wolf sat up inside him. Something was wrong. The engines hummed, steady but strained, and the cabin smelled faintly of oil.
He unbuckled and stalked forward, finding the cockpit door ajar. Inside, the pilot was strapping on a parachute.
“What the hell are you doing?” Morgan barked.
The pilot jumped, fumbling with the harness. “Sorry, mate-job’s a job. They paid me to get you in the air, not down again.”
Síofra’s blood ran cold as she came up behind him, “Morgan?”
Before Morgan could act, smoke surged out of his skin. Ashmedai burst free, towering, wings unfurling, eyes gleaming molten gold. His grin split wide.
The pilot screamed, but it was cut short. Ashmedai’s jaws unhinged, and in a single, sickening movement, he devoured the man whole.
Síofra slapped a hand over her mouth, choking down bile. Morgan staggered, staring at the empty cockpit. “Ash-what the fuck? Who’s supposed to fly the plane now?”
Ashmedai’s expression flickered. Almost sheepish. “Oops.”
Síofra found her voice, trembling but sharp. “Cannibal.”
The demon spun on her with a huff. “I am not human. Therefore, not a cannibal.”
Morgan scrubbed his face with both hands. “You think this is funny? I might survive a crash, but she-” He gestured at Síofra, who was pale and furious. “She’ll die.”
Ashmedai’s grin sharpened. “Easily solved.”
Before Morgan could stop him, smoke swallowed his body again. Horns flared, claws tearing through the fuselage. Ashmedai swept Síofra into his arms, wings sprouting wide as night wind howled through the cabin.
“Don’t you dare-” she shrieked as he ripped the cabin door clean off.
He leapt, launching them into the cold, rushing dark. Síofra’s scream split the night as the plane disintegrated behind them.
Ashmedai’s laughter roared with the wind. “Do you know, once, I had a nymph who insisted on coupling while I flew. Delightful, if a little… distracting.”
“Don’t you dare think about it!” Síofra yelled, clinging to him as Paris glimmered faintly in the distance.
Morgan’s voice, buried deep in the cockpit of their shared body, groaned. “With our luck, we’ll bang straight into the Eiffel Tower.”
Ashmedai’s grin widened. “This monument is important, yes? Then we will make history.”
They landed just outside Paris and walked the rest of the way, slipping into Père Lachaise Cemetery under cover of night.
Ash explained that the shadows told him where to go.Cloaked in twilight, the place had an unsettling majesty.
Ancient trees arched overhead, their leaves whispering in the wind, casting dappled moonlight over graves and mausoleums. Statues of angels loomed in silence.
Morgan guided them through the winding lanes, past moss-covered headstones and names that whispered of centuries: Proust, La Fontaine, Oscar Wilde.
Síofra paused, shivering, at one marker - a weathered sculpture of a man clutching a severed head. The stone beneath it bore no name. Nearby, under the weeping boughs of a willow, an ancient, unmarked slab of rock lay sunken into the ground.
Ashmedai stirred, his voice reverent. “This leads to the tunnels of the dead. The catacombs.”
Smoke peeled across Morgan’s shoulders, the demon taking shape long enough to raise a clawed hand. The slab trembled, stone grinding against stone, until a narrow passage yawned open, a shadowy tunnel plunging into the earth.
“Nope.” Síofra backed up two steps, shaking her head. “Absolutely not. I am not going in there.”
Morgan peered down into the dark, his own stomach knotting. “How are we supposed to see?”
Ashmedai only smirked. He snapped off a low branch from the willow, lifted it to his mouth, and exhaled a tongue of fire. The wood caught instantly, burning with a steady, unnatural light. He pressed it into Morgan’s hand. “Better?”
“You could’ve done that five minutes ago,” Morgan grumbled.
Ashmedai ignored him. “You need to eat more,” he added offhandedly as he melted back into Morgan’s body. “I have been reading. You are eating for two now. Low blood sugar is dangerous if the internet is to be believed.”
Morgan groaned. “You found Google”
“I’ll go first”, he said, gingerly dropping down to look around before slotting their makeshift torch in a holder on the wall and reaching up to help Síofra.
His hands caressed her calves to travel up to the curve of her waist and finally bring her skin to skin and hold her there for a minute while smelling her hair.
“This is not how I planned our mating would go,” he sighed into her hair “I promise I will make up for all this,love”
Síofra snorted despite herself, then pressed herself into his muscled chest and held him for a few precious seconds. Then she sobered as they descended into the yawning dark.
The air grew damp, heavy with the smell of earth and bones. Skulls and femurs were stacked in grim walls, endless corridors of the dead. Their footsteps echoed, every sound magnified. Somewhere in the dark, something skittered.
Ashmedai whispered directions, his voice low but steady, until they reached a particular skull wedged among the countless others. “Here,” he said.
Morgan reached for it reluctantly after placing the torch on a holder on the wall. The bone was cold as ice, and crusted with centuries of filth. He braced one hand against the wall of ossified remains and tugged.
The skull didn’t come free easily. It gave a sickening squelch as if something half-rotted still clung to it, as if strings of decayed sinew were peeling away. Dust and fragments of teeth rained down, the eye sockets staring hollow and accusing as he wrenched it harder.
When it finally tore loose with a wet crack, the sound echoed down the tunnel like breaking cartilage. A stench puffed out with it, the stale reek of centuries trapped in bone, enough to make his stomach heave.
Morgan grimaced, holding the grim relic at arm’s length. “God. That’s foul.”
The wall groaned.
Suddenly the section collapsed, skulls and bones tumbling in a thunderous avalanche. Dust choked the air. They stumbled back, their hearts hammering, the torchlight flickering.
“Unworthy mortals, frightened by these puny remains. Start digging,” Ashmedai urged. “The sword is close.”
They started digging into the wall while Síofra tried to control her terror. Every so often, dull thumps echoed in the distance behind them. Sometimes too quick, sometimes heavy.
Finally, jutting from a stone block was a corroded hilt. Morgan grasped it, muscles straining and with a final wrench, the sword came free, gleaming faintly as though it was recalling its purpose.
“Yes,” Ashmedai breathed. “Freyr’s blade.”
Morgan turned, lifting the torch. “Good. Now let’s get the hell out of here-”
The words froze in his throat as an inhuman groan echoed from the darkness..
From the corner of the tunnel came a dragging sound. Slow. Relentless.
Out of the gloom, a figure lurched into view. In the dim light of the torch, skin stretched tight over bone became visible, rotting eyes burning with hunger, its jaw distending as a rasping breath filled the tunnel.
Síofra’s voice shook with terror,“What-what is that?”
Ashmedai’s silence lasted too long. Then, sheepishly, “Ah. I forgot.”
“Forgot what?” Morgan snarled.
“The wendigos.”
The creature shrieked, the sound piercing their ears. Bone fragments rattled from the walls.
“Run,” Ashmedai said flatly.
The thing lunged. Morgan swung the blade instinctively. The steel bit deep, cleaving it apart. The body collapsed in a twitching heap.
Relief lasted only a breath. The severed pieces began to slither back together. Bones shifted, flesh reknit.
Another scream echoed further down the corridor.
A second shape dragged itself into view.
Morgan’s grip tightened on the sword. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The first wendigo’s body convulsed, twitching as it dragged itself back together, bones snapping back into place like warped clockwork. Its eyes glowed with ravenous fire as it lunged again, faster this time.
Morgan swung Freyr’s sword with all his strength. The steel sang, cleaving an arm free but the limb writhed on the ground, claws scraping toward his ankle.
Ashmedai’s voice snarled in his head. “Careful! A bite will turn you. And trust me, vessel, you do not want that curse gnawing in your marrow.”
Another scream echoed, closer. A third wendigo staggered into view, its skull-like face snapping toward Síofra. She froze, terror locking her in place.
“Move!” Morgan shoved her aside, blade flashing again. He clipped the creature’s side, black ichor spraying the bone walls. The stench was suffocating.
“Back!” Síofra’s voice was shrill as she tried to wedge herself into the narrow tunnel, her hands over her ears. “Oh gods, oh gods, they’re everywhere-”
The first wendigo lunged low, teeth snapping, and its jaws barely missed Morgan’s thigh. The sound of them clashing shut rang in his bones. If it had caught him-
“Don’t let them touch you!” Ashmedai barked, his tone edged with real alarm. “One bite and you’ll be wendigo-spawn. Mind gone, flesh rotting away.”
Bones shifted again, walls collapsing further as though the tunnels themselves were trying to bury them alive. Dust rained from the ceiling.
“We can’t fight them all!” Síofra cried.
Morgan’s chest heaved. “Run…RUN.” He grabbed her hand and yanked her toward the nearest side passage, sword clutched in his other fist.
The creatures shrieked, the sound bouncing in endless echoes. Their claws scraped the stone as they gave chase, faster than a human.
The tunnels twisted, the path narrowing, until Morgan saw it-a sliver of pale moonlight ahead.
“Go!” he roared, shoving Síofra through the opening.
They burst into the open air, stumbling into the cemetery above, lungs burning.
Morgan swung the sword in a wide arc at the opening, forcing the creatures back into the dark.
Ashmedai hissed words in a language older than stone, and shadows thickened over the mouth of the tunnel, sealing it like a wound.
The night went still.
Síofra collapsed onto the grass, gasping, her skirt torn and dust-streaked. “That… that was too close.”
Morgan wiped ichor from the blade, his hands still shaking. “If they’d bitten us-” He broke off, throat tight.
Ashmedai’s golden eyes flickered faintly from the shadows of his mind. “I said run. You ran. YOU take instructions well for a mortal.”
Morgan glared up at the stars, still panting. “Next time, maybe remember to warn us before you drop us into a nest of flesh eating undead.”
Ashmedai’s chuckle was low and unapologetic. “Oops.”