Chapter 16
Graysen
Yezekael hovered at the edge of his lair.
Mela and I crouched side by side, barely breathing.
Her fingers cinched around the coiled chain and cuffs humming faintly with magic, while I gripped Leviathan Spinebender, the wyrm-taming whip Zrenyth had forged, its volatile energy calmed under my earlier command.
It hung looped within my fingers, the handle warm in my palm, while every muscle in my body was locked taut, ready to spring forward.
The V?duvas had carefully drilled through the rock face right through to Yezekael’s lair.
Using a portion of the rubble and dust from the breach, they’d artfully created a fake wall—a thin veneer with the barest smattering of magic infusing the mineral.
A cursed net was set in the high ceiling of the den, blended so cleverly that even I could barely see the tiny, writhing tentacles.
From here, the hide worked as a two-way mirror.
Though darkness folded around Yezekael’s figure like the drapery of midnight, I could see him clearly.
He cocked his head, an appropriate birdlike movement for a birdlike creature.
His face was male and human, but long like a stretched droplet of water.
Eyes with pupils shaped like crescent moons blinked once and then narrowed as he scanned his lair.
His gaze drifted across the fake wall where we hid in the shadows.
For one irrational moment, his line of sight seemed to spear straight through the thin veneer and lock on me.
Shock punched through my ribcage.
My fingertips flexed around Leviathan’s handle, waiting for him to whirl around and flee.
But his gaze swept on. Shifting a tiny bit closer, he lifted a thread-worn sack, the faint metallic chink of whatever lay inside rattling softly.
The creature was a magpie in nature. Besides the sack, strung across his chest were leather harnesses with bulging pouches filled with who-the-fuck-knows.
It reminded me of the Horned Gods who were deemed Witches and how they strapped oddities and rarities to their bodies for their spells.
Bracing a hand on the narrow cleft that served as his nest’s entrance, he stretched his long neck and sniffed deeply through a large, hooked nose, searching for whatever felt wrong in his nest.
The knot in my gut snagged tighter, and I shared a grim look with Petra, Mela’s second-in-command, crouched on my other side, poised on the balls of her feet, fist raised to hold the team in position.
We’d masked our scent, but something had sown unease. Maybe the V?duvas hadn’t hidden their presence well enough. Or maybe Yezekael was simply overly-suspicious. After all, he’d evaded Sirro for years.
He lingered outside his nest. Leathery wings edged in scarlet feathers were tucked close to his sides, but one hung limply and its tip dragged on the ground as if the wing had been broken and healed wrong.
Why hasn’t Sirro caught Yezekael himself?—I asked the Uzrek, who’d been slinking in and out of my mind since I entered the hide. Yezekael was a lesser creature and would never outmatch Sirro in dark power, let alone a fistfight.
Sirro doesn’t like to come down here—he murmured—he doesn’t want me poking around in his head and learning all of his secrets.
I bet he fucking doesn’t—the Horned God was notorious for his secrecy and legion of agendas.
The Uzrek’s chuckle rumbled through my head.
Yezekael shifted a foot onto the rutted ground inside his nest.
Anticipation fizzed through my bloodstream.
Come on… Step the fuck inside.
We needed him fully inside the lair to block the entrance and spring the trap. But he hovered there, half-in, half-out.
Petra’s fist stayed raised, ready to give the order to strike.
Yezekael visibly relaxed. He lifted a hand to his mouth.
Long, thin fingers clutched something fleshy.
Sharp teeth tore a bite from a human ear, and he chewed the gristly flesh as he ducked inside the lair.
With each step deeper into the large space, his confidence grew as he neared the new nest built from woven branches and shattered bones.
I felt Petra give the order rather than see it—a faint brush of air against my senses as she dropped her hand.
It happened fast.
A loud cacophony erupted as we all shoved forward. The crack of weapons and shields igniting.
Red-hot magic exploded at the hide’s corners, firing across the fake wall and vaporizing it.
The cursed net dropped from the ceiling—
—ensnaring Yezekael.
A scream of fright. A bellow of outrage.
The V?duvas and Crowthers surged out, blocking the entranceway to the lair, locking shields of hardened air together like riot police.
Yezekael staggered, struggling to free himself from the net draped over his body. I sprang forward, releasing Leviathan’s lash, slinging the whip.
The slender line of misty shadows sliced overhead—
—aiming for the bitter end of the rope at the bottom of the net that danced upon the pitted ground.
The lash’s tip seized the rope’s end in an iron grip, and I snapped my arm back, sending it soaring toward me.
Snatching hold, I swiveled sideways and wrenched hard, planting my feet, digging in as I hauled the rope hand over hand.
The sleeve bunched and narrowed into a bottleneck around Yezekael’s feet.
It was a simple trap, a simple method to ensnare the creature. It worked like a drawstring, and the tightening jerked him off his feet.
He slammed backward onto his wings, a scream tearing loose. With a quick yank, the bottom of the net cinched together like a fisherman’s cast net scooping up a catch of flapping sardines.
Even down, Yezekael fought. Long, wiry limbs thrashing, dog-pad soles scraping against stone, bird claws raking for purchase.
The cursed netting writhed as if alive, tiny black tendrils stretching and wavering like a sea anemone, sticking to his downy plumage, creeping and crawling along the scarlet feathers as they tightened their hold.
I could taste Yezekael’s panic, his desperation to escape. His eyes were round with trepidation as he accepted defeat and ceased his struggling.
My knees sagged as elation bubbled through my veins like a spritzer spiked with moonshine. I shot a holy fuck look at Mela, who returned it. We’d finally caught the creature for Sirro.
Waving the relay pair forward, I clapped a hand on the guy’s shoulder, urgency sharpening my tone.
“Get a message topside. We’ve caught Yezekael.
We’re bringing him in.” He nodded, determined.
His partner already had daggers palmed, and I pointed at her.
“Stay with him. Protect his back.” Her grin was wide and slightly vicious, reminding me very much of Petra.
A second later, they spun around, launching into a sprint to disappear into the catacombs.
I wiped my forearm across my forehead, smearing the grime and dirt I’d rubbed on to disguise my scent. Drawing a breath of stale air, I bent and snatched up my whip.
Shards of bone crunched underfoot as I approached Yezekael. The nest buzzed with organized chaos, my Second, Jiao, barking orders, Petra echoing them. Hardened-air shields powered down, the cylinder handles tucked away.
Mela and I took either side of Yezekael and hauled him upright, the netting writhing all over him. He was tall, not as tall as Florin, but enough that I had to crane my head back a bit.
Petra closed in, holding the cuffs while Mela gripped the chains.
True to House Simonis craft, they were laced with magic, the cuffs sparkling with a whitish glow that washed up Petra’s armor and lit the underside of her chin.
We were going to bind Yezekael’s wrists, pin his wings, and hobble his ankles.
After that, it would be a long hike back up to the subway maintenance corridors.
“Who are you? Which House do you serve?” Yezekael asked, his voice gritty, like sand rubbed over metal.
Petra flashed a wicked, toothy grin. “V?duva.”
“What do you want with me?”
Petra arched a brow at me, and Yezekael twisted his head in my direction. I peered through the holes in the writhing netting. “Nothing,” I said, coiling the lash and looping Leviathan Spinebender over my shoulders beside my bandoleer. “It’s not us who want you. It’s Sirro.”
“Sirro,” he sneered. “Always getting the Children of the Houses to do his bidding.” His tone softened, turning coaxing. “I have many strange and rare items I could trade for my freedom. Name your price.”
I snatched a wyrmbone dagger from its sheath and spun it by the tips of my fingers.
“Yeah, no thanks.” I certainly wasn’t going to betray Sirro.
The Horned God had a way of finding things out.
And besides, I wanted to know why he wanted Yezekael.
I was hoping I’d learn that when I handed the lesser creature over to him.
Mela tossed the coiled chain to Petra, the metal links rattling as she caught it one-handed. I gripped the netting, ready to slice it open the instant Petra moved to hobble his ankles.
The creature bowed his head, staring intently down at me. A cold sensation trickled through my veins as I met his sinister gaze. I sure as fuck didn’t like the smugness tugging at those wide, fleshy lips.
“Do you think something like this flimsy net can keep me bound? The silly chains and cuffs too?” he whispered.
Peeking through a gap in the netting, I realized he was holding something. In his palm lay two gray stones, seemingly ordinary until the brush of my senses made me recoil in horror, bellowing, “GRENADE!”
Yezekael squeezed his palm and the stones rolled together.
The barest touch. The faintest clink of stone on stone. A trigger.
The ceiling detonated with an almighty BOOM.
The lair convulsed.
Dark magic exploded, shattering rock.
The blast ricocheted outward, throwing everyone off their feet. I hit the ground with an oomph, slamming into harsh stone, pain stabbing my shoulder.
Rock rained down.
Stone sprayed like wild gunfire.
I threw my arms over my head, rolling over to shield myself.
The explosion was so deafening the surrounding noises became distorted as if I were underwater. Muffled cries and the bleating of the wounded warped around plummeting rockfall hammering the jagged floor, a thick storm of dust pluming upward like an octopus’s ink cloud.
My lungs seized, and my chest heaved with a wracking cough. I fought for a breath of clean air.
Shit, shit, shit…
Stunned, I shook my head, blinking against the grit.
I waved a hand through the dirty clouds as I pushed sluggishly to my feet.
Through the filthy air, I saw dust-covered team members rising, coughing and shaking off rubble.
One man’s leg was pinned beneath a boulder, and Petra knelt beside him, shoving down on a sword she’d levered under the rock, yelling for a medic.
Yezekael…?
I twisted around. Too late. In a whoosh of magic, the net incinerated like dry grass.
His fingers wrenched at the remaining scraps of cursed netting, flinging them away.
Freed, he bounded toward where his nest had once been, now crushed beneath a craggy rockfall.
In a few leaps he’d scaled the heap of rocks.
Sweeping into a crouch on those birdlike legs, he shot me a sly grin before springing upward.
Leathery wings snapped wide and beat down, propelling him up to soar through the gaping hole in the lair’s roof.
Hellsgate.
In a blink, he was gone.