Chapter 5
With three armed dwarves at my back, there was nothing to do but step inside.
That grating sound, something heavy raking through the dirt, came and went again. The door, I now knew. We were locked in.
Grum elbowed his way to the front of our group, the light from his torch bouncing off the narrow mining shaft. I’d tasted the musty, damp air just standing at the threshold—in here, it was suffocating.
Clearly, this wasn’t the front door. The dust and lack of footprints, along with the debris crunching beneath our feet, gave off the vibe it hadn’t been used—let alone swept—in years.
I kicked the dirt to clear my path, nudging aside a few random sticks. Dozens upon dozens littered the floor, so bleached it must have been ages since they’d seen the light of day. Under my heels, they cracked and split with the lightest touch, crunching…
My stomach dropped. Those were not twigs.
Those were… bones. Femurs. Spines. Skulls.
Oh my God. I was going to be sick.
“A message if yer lookin’ to loot our realm.” The whisper shattered the silence like it was a pane of glass.
Irritation slipped past my clenched teeth. “Was that meant to be reassuring, Nemuik?”
“’Twas meant to be a warnin’.”
“I’ve been sufficiently warned, thanks.” I didn’t care that it echoed through the tunnel, that the snap of it made the pointy tops of his ears twitch.
Who in their right mind would loot this place?
A draft blew through the corridor, batting at the torch’s flame. Its fiery tendrils flickered, softened. I clutched tight onto my captors, fear lancing through me.
Declan raised a wiry brow at the touch. I didn’t let go. If that light went out, no way was I letting myself end up on the floor with those bones.
Although that might be better than what waited for me up ahead.
The air grew heavier, the silence thicker. The floor a death trap of skeletons, the tunnel feeling even tighter. And the ceiling seemed to get lower and lower, eerie shapes gathering in clusters overhead.
Throat dry, I rasped, “What is that?”
If they said bats, I might die.
“Crystals.” Grum raised his torch.
The translucent blue rocks glimmered in the fire’s reflection. They were everywhere now, growing out of the damp earth, dotting the ceiling like stars.
“In its heyday, ’twas an excavation site.” Nemuik grabbed a fallen shard. “All te greatest warriors, all te finest hunters, all te realms was fightin’ for a piece of Moonrock Mine.”
“Why?” My eardrums popped, and the sound of my voice, the tread of our footsteps, rushed at me as if I’d been underwater.
“Mined wit dwarven magic.” He held up the sleek fragment of crystal, twisting it in the firelight. “Then forged into weapons that’ll memorize yer enemies, gainin’ power wit every drop of blood. After two or three brawls they’ll start singin’ when yer foes are nearby.”
He stashed the shard in his pocket.
“So, is the operation on hiatus, or…?”
“Nah, ’tis over. Too much fightin’. Too much lootin’. Too many deaths. Most te mines collapsed in te Loma Prieta eart’quake. This is one of te only shafts that survived. Now we jus’ use it for te ghosts and te prisoners.” He wriggled his bushy brows.
Wonderful. I wondered if I should ask aloud which I was to be.
I bit down on my lip. We treaded on. Around us, light rippled off the crystals and the path finally grew wider.
Voices carried into our corridor, which emptied us into a much larger, much busier chamber—and much, much brighter. Crystals glistened from every spare inch of space, mimicking a clear, cloudless, sky.
My heart leapt: there were a dozen or so offshoots splitting from this main room. One had to lead outside. My arms were now free of the dwarves, I could make a run for it.
That hope immediately died when I noticed they were all patrolled by guards of various species and sizes, all strapped with weapons, decked in spiky leather, and supernaturally still—aside from their heads, which slowly tracked us through the cavern, over the dinged mosaic in the center and to the foot of a black dais.
As we passed a dimly lit tunnel, I met the icy glare of some kind of cave troll. I jerked my eyes away.
Staring is quite rude, Ryder once told me. I hushed that inner voice real quick, but the reality was… I couldn’t help it if I tried. Everywhere I looked there was something terrifying, something magical.
“What is it we ’ave ’ere?” a very displeased being bellowed through the circular room.
It drew my attention forward, to the dwarf sitting on the glossy, onyx throne.
The Wizard. King of the Night Stalkers.
My fingers curled, digging into my palms like claws. After what I’d witnessed at Crescent Rock tonight, I could wring his meaty neck right here.
“Well?” Tapping his knuckles on an elaborate wooden snake head that’d been carved on the stiles, he sized me up with his visible eye. A patch fixed over a tight skull cap covered where his other one might lie. “Ye got somethin’ to say, Nephilim?”
Plenty, but he had more.
My tired gaze roved the dais to the grisly beings fanned around him—at least a dozen dwarves and trolls, creatures with scales and horns—Ryder and Leif missing from the crowd. They must not have made it back yet.
Drawing in a breath, I went to form words, but the bloody scene from the tribunal flashed before my mind. I cringed at the thought of all the battered crimson fur, at what might have happened to my friends, at their solemn howls that’d been echoing through the forest as I ran—like a coward.
The Wizard leaned towards an associate, blue eye narrowing. “Somethin’ wrong wit her?”
“With me?” I didn’t even mean to say it. It just flew out of my mouth between one choppy breath and the next. “The Night Stalkers massacred dozens of innocent people tonight. I know you have no morals, but do you have no laws? No rules?”
Every pair of eyeballs whipped to me. Nothing except the slow drip of the stalactites broke the tense silence. I bit the inside of my cheek, trying not to flinch at each splash against stone.
The Wizard’s lips broke into a sinister smile, teeth sharp and glistening. “Got a sense of humor, this one, don’t she.”
Hands as strong as iron locked around my biceps again. Declan and Nemuik.
Huffing air out my nose, I gritted out, “Nothing about this is funny.”
“Then why ye crackin’ jokes?” Darkness swirled beneath his wispy lashes as he pinned me with a knowing look.
My stomach flipped. He knew something was wrong. He just wanted me to cooperate in front of all his loyal subjects.
I wasn’t going to let this go.
“You’re a smart man.” I wrestled against the grip of the dwarves at my sides, not missing that every hand and claw in the chamber slid to their sheathed weapons.
“And as leader of such a well-oiled syndicate, I’d be shocked if you didn’t keep tabs on every member, on every contract that gets signed here. ”
A hiss slithered in the air, raking over my skin. I could have sworn it trickled from one of the mouths of the serpents on the arms of his chair, but that was impossible. They were ornamental, like gargoyles sculpted onto a steeple.
“Especially ones that call for blood.” My jaw was so tight I barely managed to get the rest out. “Especially if it meant sending hundreds of your Stalkers on an ambush. Or maybe you just turn a cheek when the hush money is right.”
The Wizard sat back in his throne, loosely draping his elbow over the armrest, the snakes unmoving but poised to strike. With the blood rushing in my ears, I’d probably just been hearing things. He sucked his teeth, as if something was stuck between his molars.
“Throw ’er in the pit.”
The dwarves dragged me across the room, towards one of the more secluded tunnels.
“Wait! Let go of me!” I bucked against their grasp. “WAIT!”
The chamber shook with the force of my shout. Nemuik and Declan lay in a heap, bug-eyed, mouths gaping. Source charged my blood, the air, my breaths. Condensation beaded the smooth face of the stone, vibrating with power. My power.
I drew in a ragged breath. I couldn’t let them see what this was—an accident. That would be deadlier; it’d reveal the crack in my armor.
So, I did nothing to soften the snarl on my face or the glare in my eyes, even if the hushed creak of bows and the whisk of spears whispered through the room.
Even if they were all aimed at my chest.
Water flowed in thin rivulets from the walls to the floor, pooling beneath the soles of my feet.
“That’s right.” The Wizard’s eye stayed glued to my hands, as if they were a pair of rare, fatal weapons that might rip him apart if he tore his gaze away. “Yer that Angel of Water.”
A wave of subdued realization fell over the room. I kept my expression bored.
“Tough contract, that one.” A chunky ring glistened in the light as he twirled the braided end of his beard. “Almost didn’t ’ave te Stalkers take it when that Grater Demon approached me wit it.”
“How considerate of you.” I pursed my lips.
“I heard ye escaped her clutches, ye stealthy little ting.” He released a wiry gray strand of hair from around his finger.
“Ryder and Leif wanted to pursue ye after.” My heart stumbled, the words hitting an aching part of me.
“I declined their request. By syndicate standards, their work was done. Not our business what ’appens to ye after. How’s that for yer morals?”
Tears stung my eyes. I clenched my jaw, holding them back.
Foolish. I was so foolish to think Ryder only betrayed me because he’d been bound by blood and honor.
But the Wizard said it himself: Ryder had delivered me to his client, Finis—he’d completed that job thoroughly—and yet he was still hunting me.
I just couldn’t figure out why.
“But now that yer standin’ right ’ere…” Veins popped out of his weathered skin, that quiet hiss from earlier slithering in the space between us again. “It’d be easy to pop ye in a sack and deliver ye to Chthonia meself. I’m sure tere’d be a very large reward. A very large reward indeed…”
My breaths rattled in my lungs as Nemuik and Declan shifted closer.
“Whatever it is,” I quickly lied, “I can offer more.”
“Te devil pays well.”
I stiffened. I don’t think it really hit me who was haunting me, hunting me, until he said that. The Night Stalkers were just a tool, loyal only to each other and the ones that hired them—it was hell itself that put the bounty on my head.
“Was it money or morals stopping you from coming after me further?” I questioned.
He shrugged. “We all got to feed our families, little Nephy. No offense to ye.”
“Oh, that makes it better.” Cold sweat swept over my neck.
Bearing my weight on my hip, I glanced at my rippling reflection in the shallow puddles at my feet. A spark of magic shot through my veins, giving me a small burst of confidence. And an idea…
They couldn’t hand me over if I was one of them.
“I offer you my service.” I twirled my wrists, the Wizard’s associates taking a step back at the fluid spin of my joints. A deathly smirk curled my lip—they didn’t need to know I had no idea what I was doing, that I’d spent the entire summer trying to summon my Source only to fail every time.
The Wizard’s forehead crinkled. He was considering.
“Nah.” With a casual wave of his tattooed hand, he summoned his cronies.
“Wait!” I said again. The dwarves froze midstride, wincing at the power in my voice.
The Wizard raised a salt-and-peppered brow in assessment.
“Give me any job you want,” I said smoothly, pushing back the thoughts about what they might have me doing.
Survival, wasn’t that their big thing? Well, now I was in survival mode, and I’d do just about anything to get out alive—including swearing allegiance to a supernatural syndicate that may or may not have ambushed my friends.
“We don’t offer jobs,” he said. “We offer contracts.”
“Fine.” I spit out the word before I changed my mind. “Give me a contract.”
“Ye’ll be bound by magic.”
“Figured.”
Resting his chin on his knuckles, he tilted his head. “Ye know what kind of tings we do around ’ere? Or do ye need remindin’?”
A shiver wisped up my spine, my gaze lifting from the throne to the skulls strung like a garland across the back wall. He wouldn’t have me kill someone right off the bat… would he? I was too in my head. My confidence was slipping.
“No,” I said simply, even though my voice faltered.
Mischief twinkled in his eye. “Then we ’ave ourselves a deal.”
“Great. What are the terms?”
“Been lookin’ for somethin’. Need ye to find it and steal it.”
Thievery. Better than cold-blooded murder—but still. I crossed my arms.
As if he read the movement, he added, “’Tis this or te pit.”
A casual ultimatum.
I bit the inside of my cheek until the metallic tang of blood coated my mouth. The pain was easier than fear—it kept me from squirming, from revealing everything with one silly flinch.
“Alright,” I ground out. “When do we draft this up?”
“Now.”
“Ok.” My heart fluttered. “You got a pen?”
The Wizard’s mouth drew into a toothy grin. “Oh no, little Nephy. Our contracts aren’t signed wit pens.” He whipped out a metal tool with a pointed tip. My face paled. It was a tattoo gun. “Tey’re signed wit needles.”