Chapter Twelve
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THE TUNNELS SMELLED like mold and decay, and it wasn’t Dimri’s idea of a good time.
He pressed his back against the slimy stone wall as he allowed his eyes to adjust to the near-complete darkness and listened for movement ahead.
Behind him was the team he’d put together—eight skilled demons who understood that their lives and the lives of the people they cared about depended on the outcome of this fight.
“Anything?” one of them whispered.
Dimri held up a hand for silence, not bothering to turn and see who’d spoken. He breathed in and out slowly, listening to the deep darkness ahead. The soft splash of footsteps in shallow water came from the tunnel to their left. It was too heavy to be an animal. It had to be Ramiel’s people.
Dimri turned to his team. “On the left, five, maybe six of them,” he whispered, sure the attackers wouldn’t hear him.
They didn’t expect anyone to be here, and the closer they got, the noisier they were.
They weren’t even trying to conceal their presence in the tunnels.
“Vex and Thorne, circle around through the right tunnel. The rest of us will face them head-on.”
Vex nodded and slipped away with Thorne, disappearing into the darkness that Dimri had mapped in his head years ago. The side tunnel would take them behind the enemies they were about to face, as long as they could make it there without making noise.
Dimri waited. Every sound coming from the palace made his chest tighten with worry. Was Roque safe? Was Berith?
He gave Vex and Thorne enough time, then gestured ahead. He and the rest of the team moved silently, weapons drawn but held low. Dimri led them around a curve in the tunnel in the direction from which the enemy sounds were growing stronger.
The first attacker never saw them coming.
He was a bulky demon with ram’s horns standing guard while the others worked to break through a sealed tunnel that would lead them deeper into the palace.
Dimri’s knife landed in the back of his neck, puncturing it so deeply that the tip appeared in the middle of the demon’s throat.
Keth caught the body before it could fall and get the attention of the others.
They dragged him back into the tunnel, where Dimri retrieved his knife.
He hoped they’d be able to take down a few more demons before they noticed what was happening.
The attackers each had a light of some kind. They were focused on their work, using tools they’d brought along to hack away at the mortar that sealed the bricks used to seal the tunnel.
Dimri crept closer, hoping the racket they were making would cover his approach.
One of the demons held a piece of paper he kept glancing down at.
When Dimri got closer, he realized it was a hand-drawn map, possibly by the spy he’d had thrown into a cell.
They’d probably planned for her to guide these demons through the tunnels, but without her, they had to rely on a map that Dimri could see had several mistakes.
A chunk of mortar fell into the tunnel, raising a cloud of dust and making one of the demons sneeze. Dimri threw his knife again, nailing a second demon in the back of the neck. They were making this too easy for him.
Before the other demons could react, Dimri’s team struck from two directions at once.
Keth’s claws dug into one attacker’s throat while Jorik drove his short sword between another’s ribs.
A third attacker shouted, the sound echoing down the tunnels, but Senna quickly put a knife through his eye, dropping him.
She’d been just a few seconds too late. Somewhere in the darkness of the tunnel, something moved, alerted by the dead demon’s yell.
“How many more?” Thale asked.
“Too many,” Dimri told him. They’d only taken down a handful of enemies. There were plenty more to kill.
They’d have their work cut out for them.
The sound of running feet came from the tunnel. They’d heard the dying demon, and they were coming.
“They’re coming from several tunnels at once,” Vex said.
Dimri thought about their options. They could retreat and try to continue taking the enemy down one by one, but it would take a long time, and it would be dangerous. He also didn’t want to allow these demons too close to the heart of the palace.
The alternative was meeting the enemy here, in the tunnels. Luckily, Dimri knew them well enough that he was sure he could hide himself and his team while they worked.
A loud explosion rocked the ground under their feet and made dust rain down.
“What the fuck was that?” someone on his team asked.
Dimri wished he knew, but he needed to focus on the problem at hand, not what might be happening upstairs. He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted. He’d promised Roque he wouldn’t be.
“Not our problem right now,” he said. “We have work to do.”
They did. The sound of people running at them was getting louder, so Dimri signaled his team to follow him. He took twists and turns, making sure not to put too much distance between them and the enemy. They had to have access to the demons in order to kill them.
“Now,” he murmured once the demons stopped moving. They’d found the bodies of their fellow soldiers, and while they were distracted, it wouldn’t last long.
Dimri rushed ahead, knowing the others were behind him. The fight was brutal but thankfully quick. Unfortunately for Dimri and his team, it was only the first wave. They barely had the time to breathe before more enemy soldiers swarmed them.
But Dimri’s team had the advantage of knowing the tunnels and each other.
They worked together, using the darkness and the tunnels to strike and retreat.
This was the kind of fighting Dimri was good at.
He’d always worked best in the shadows, taking his enemy by surprise.
It wasn’t usually this bloody, but it was necessary.
“How’s everyone?” he asked during a lull in the fighting. He was panting, but they weren’t done yet.
“Jorik’s down,” Thale said. “He’s fine, but he took a bad cut to the leg. Senna’s hurt, too.”
Dimri knelt beside Jorik to check the wound. He wasn’t a healer, but while it was deep, he didn’t think it was fatal. “Can you walk?”
“With help,” Jorik answered, a grimace twisting his lips. Considering the amount of blood on his pants and the floor, Dimri got it.
“Good. Let’s head back toward the palace. I can’t hear anyone else here for the moment, but I don’t doubt there are more soldiers hiding. We need to regroup and get Jorik to safety.”
Dimri’s phone vibrated in his pocket once they reached the entrance to the tunnels. He let the others walk ahead as he took it out, relieved to see Roque’s name on the screen. He’d probably been trying to call, but there was no signal in the tunnels.
“Tell me you and Berith are okay,” he said when he answered.
“We are. You?”
“A few wounded, but we’re all alive and walking. I don’t know how many we killed, but I’m sure there are more. We’ll be going back in soon.”
“I’ll tell Berith. Stay alive down there, please.”
“You too,” Dimri replied. “See you soon.” He wouldn’t consider any other alternative. “All right,” he said to his team. “Let’s finish this.” The sooner they did, the sooner he’d be back with Roque.
* * * *
ROQUE’S JOB USUALLY consisted of him standing around watching Berith’s back.
Today was a little different. Since he’d grown close to Dimri, he’d been assigned the task of being Dimri’s point of contact.
Dimri called him with any updates he had from the tunnels, and Roque passed those updates on.
Alternatively, he called Dimri, like he had after the explosion earlier, to check in on him and his team.
It was the only way to know what was happening everywhere in the palace.
Mikal was doing the same thing with his guards, and there was someone communicating with the guards outside the palace and those who’d left to ensure that Ramiel would believe that Berith wasn’t here at the moment.
This way, they knew everything that was happening, and they could coordinate the forces.
Berith was doing a good job. It wasn’t a surprise.
Berith hadn’t always been a prince. He’d taken over from the person who’d been in control of the territory years ago, and while Roque hadn’t been his bodyguard back then, he remembered that it hadn’t been pretty.
The territory had lived in peace since then, but people still remembered how things were before, and they were unwilling to go back to that kind of life.
Even if Ramiel were to defeat Berith, he’d be in for a rude awakening.
People here weren’t just going to give in and bow down to him.
They’d make his taking over the territory lengthy and messy.
That wasn’t something Roque needed to think about now.
There was a good chance that Berith would win this fight, and when he did, their territory would finally be rid of Ramiel.
He couldn’t be allowed to live after everything he’d done, so it was a good thing that Lucifer had declared that anyone who managed to get their hands on him should kill him.
The king of Hell didn’t take it nicely when people threatened his throne and his people.
He’d already dealt with his sister. Ramiel should have been smart and left when he still could, but being cruel and ruthless didn’t make him smart.
“Dimri’s fine,” Roque told Berith, who was on his throne, his phone in his hand.
He nodded without looking up. Roque had no idea what he was looking at, but it was none of his business. His only business right now was to protect Berith, and that was what he was doing.
He couldn’t imagine what it was like for Berith to have his entire family in danger. He stood to lose much more than almost anyone else involved. It was too easy to imagine what Ramiel would do to Berith’s family if he got his hands on them.