Chapter 30
Smothering, fierce heat whipped me awake.
I jolted, eyes snapping open to find a large, hazy cavern yawning overhead.
A large flickering fire threw everything into sharp relief.
Ominous shadows hid in the craggy, uneven surface of the cavern walls, firelight stressed the crude sigils carved into the stone, and the insensible shapes in between danced like living shadows.
A pillar of smoke curled toward the ceiling, and the scent of ash clogged my nostrils and throat.
When I jerked again, panic slammed into me as coarse rope bit into the sensitive skin of my wrists. Alarm tightened my chest, making each breath saw out of me, and my heart thundered at the base of my throat. I felt sick, with fear slithering through me from being bound and helpless.
I barely had time to process how I got there when the low cadence of chanting voices broke through the pounding pulse in my head.
Dozens of robed apostles were intoning in a foreign tongue, words fast and blurred in my ears as they sang of their explicit idolization and reveled in their fanatical devotion to Moloch.
I knew without a shadow of a doubt—I had seen the place before.
Oh, no. Oh, fuck.
Horror and revulsion twisted knife-sharp through me, chased by a frigid wave of despair. It wasn’t a stress-induced dream or a torturous nightmare. Not this time. It was real. Horribly, dreadfully real.
I was there in the flesh, undoubtedly in the underground sanctum of Moloch.
After weeks of insanity and running, I’d been captured by his fanatical servants.
Memory of the party, the tryst with Luther, and the attack came rushing back to bludgeon me in the head.
Like some sick game, my mind replayed those last moments of terror as if fate meant to mock me.
Half-lost in pain and distress, I was barely aware of the chanting growing louder.
Only when the central fire raged, surging and billowing into a near-blinding inferno, could I force my groggy head to turn.
I wriggled against my bonds, but it was futile.
If I squirmed much longer, the rough rope would bite deeper and cut the skin. My wrists were already chaffed raw.
During my brief and pathetic attempt at struggling, I froze, catching sight of another body slumped and bound on the ground beside me. Those broad shoulders, that dark, slightly wavy head of hair—the shape of him was so imprinted on my mind, body, and soul that I recognized him even in the dark.
Luther.
Seeing him unconscious beside me was like plunging my head into freezing water.
A blanket of ice hitting brutally hard. It was an excruciating shock to the system.
He was the only person who would have known to come for me, the only person capable of saving me.
The sickening apprehension in my belly hardly mattered against the bone-deep knowledge that we were in immense danger.
“Luther.” My voice was the barest whisper and urgent. Hot tears escaped the corners of my eyes and carved down my cheeks as he remained unmoving. “Luther, Luther, please—oh God, please…”
Please wake up.
Please… still be alive.
Movement stole my attention, and I craned my neck to watch the figures around the fire.
Just like in my nightmare, the apostles stood in a circle wearing dark cloaks that covered their heads.
The fire highlighted some faces angled toward me, and my stomach plummeted.
Many of the faces I recognized. Fellow students, the barista at the campus coffee shop, and noteworthy people involved in Kilbride politics or the school board.
All influential in one way or another, weaving webs through the city and pulling strings behind the scenes.
These were the descendants of the founding families, like mine, who had accepted Moloch and the power he doled out to his most devoted.
Moloch’s cultists peeled their hoods down.
Heavy woven fabric dropped into forgotten husks around their feet, and they raised their arms overhead as if reaching for where the smoke vanished into the darkened cave ceiling.
The firelight burned away the traces of humanity in their eyes, and terror overflowed my nervous system.
Then two familiar faces came into view. Betrayal clawed through my intestines and surged up my throat. My insides revolted against the revelation, and I almost vomited.
Moth and Niffy.
No, Timothy and Jeniffer.
All this time?
No, no, no… This couldn’t be happening.
I couldn’t argue with reality standing right in my face.
Although a small part of me wanted to curl up in a ball, go to sleep, and shake this nightmare from my head, that wasn’t possible.
Flashes of conversation, of odd moments, crossed my mind.
Those little pieces of a puzzle sprinkled just out of reach, taunting me with answers.
I had missed every sign thrown at my feet.
Shock and embarrassment hollowed me out. They had flown under my radar since the beginning. Going unnoticed as simple students when the truth was written in the darkness, and I’d blatantly ignored it all so I wouldn’t be lonely.
A sob rattled out of me, giving me away.
Timothy’s head whipped toward me, and his pupils blew wide with predatory delight.
His cold, vicious grin split his face, and the firelight distorted his features into something sinister.
He stepped out of the circle, approaching me with measured intent.
The chanting silenced on an eerie note, leaving the cavern in unholy silence.
I squirmed, failing to move in an inch as instinct begged me to flee.
The rope was too tight, and escape felt hopeless.
Luther still hadn’t moved or indicated any sign of life.
Shuffling on the rough ground, I ignored the jab and pinch of rocks and rubble as I twisted away.
Numbness settled over me, and I went as still as prey coming to terms with death in the jaws of a monster when Timothy came to a stop beside me.
He kneeled on the rough ground, and I gulped down the whimper threatening to escape.
Then his hand reached over, fingers running through the wild, tangled strands of my hair.
My entire body went still, and panic prickled in my blood.
Then he jerked my hair, exerting enough power to yank my head up and elicit a sharp yell from me.
“Hello, Blondie,” he smirked, and it made my insides queasy. He tipped his head as another approached, speaking to them. “It feels good to finally be here after all the waiting we’ve endured. Doesn’t it?”
I swallowed, excruciatingly aware of the pain on my scalp as Jeniffer came to stand behind him. They shared a meaningful glance.
“All those nights enduring this insufferable bitch, you mean?” she snickered, and the sound was a slap to the face.
Timothy turned his gleaming yellow eyes back to me, snatching his hand from my hair as if I burned him. His lips peeled away from his teeth, displaying a predatory grin. “Oh, she wasn’t all that bad. We had fun, Blondie. Don’t you think so?”
He dropped his hand to skim a finger across my brow, brushing damp hair from my temple. The touch rattled me and set my teeth on edge.
My courage faltered, but words bubbled up in a last-ditch plea. “You… you don’t need to do this. I don’t want any part of this. Please… please, let me go. We can forget all this—”
“Forget all this?” Jeniffer spat. Her eyes gleamed like candlelight. “The Ashcrofts are traitors and—”
Timothy’s arm shot out, effectively cutting her off.
In the split second of silence I sputtered, “You know I’m only here for school. I don’t have anything to do with my family history!”
He tsked, shaking his head as if disappointed in me. His shoulders sagged, and he moved closer, towering over me and casting me in the darkness of his shadow. A shiver ripped down my spine.
“The Ashcrofts were a founding family, Ophelia. Therein, your blood belongs to Kilbride and always has. More importantly, your blood belongs to Moloch. Your grandfather wronged us, betrayed his master, and doomed your family by breaking the bond his ancestors forged with our god.” Timothy stood, wearing the mask of someone not half as upset as he wanted to seem.
The glowing triumph in his eyes burned brighter than his feigned remorse.
“There must be retribution for the wrongs committed against Him. And with your family’s atonement comes His rebirth. ”
“N-no, please, no, no, no. Don’t do this. Let us go!”
“Us?” Jeniffer hissed, and her gaze cut to Luther’s limp form.
She tilted her head and studied the history professor with owlishly round eyes.
Then she barked a mocking laugh. “Begging for your own life is one thing, but sobbing for the bastard who hunts Moloch’s most devoted? You’re pathetic, you—”
“Niffy…” Timothy drawled her name with a warning threaded in.
She bristled in return, gesturing at the unconscious man on the ground. “How many of our kind has he slaughtered over the years, especially in recent weeks since she arrived? You know as well as I do that he killed Talon!”
Her foot jerked out, connecting with his stomach.
The blunt sound of impact and his drawn-out groan muffled my gasp.
Luther didn’t move, and in the darkness, I would have sworn he wasn’t even breathing. Tears pricked the backs of my eyes, and a sob built in my chest. I tried to speak, but the words lodged in my throat. Adrenaline and fear mixed into a treacherous fog that delayed my reactions.
“Save your tears,” Timothy crooned, wiping a thumb across my cheek.
He studied the wetness before rubbing his fingers together.
He stood to his full height, staring down at me with nothing short of firm resolve in his eyes.
“Tonight, you will be the ultimate sacrifice. The blood of a traitor as recompense, and a death to pay for a life. Tonight, the gate opens, and our master comes.”
A visceral sob wrenched from my chest as Timothy turned on his heel and strode toward the circle of watchers. Jeniffer curled her lip and hissed at me before spitting at the ground near Luther. Then she flounced away to rejoin the other apostles.
Most of my life I’d fixated on history and how one incident could alter the tide of the future.
Reading history books had been a safe harbor in a world of treacherous fantasies.
Yet there I was, bound, pitiful, hollow, and destined to become a cataclysm I would have once luxuriated in reading about.
A helpless sacrifice doomed to be the key in a world-altering event that would welcome suffering and endless agony.
Because this would alter not just Kilbride and its citizens but the whole world.
For the worst. A horrible, infernal god of demons and monsters stepping foot onto our plane of reality and granting his apostles immense, terrible power…
the impending devastation was unfathomable.
And my blood, my final breath, would unlock the door holding Him back.
A pawn. A fool. I would die, leaving behind a footnote in the annals of history as a traitor’s descendant righting the wrong of his broken vow.
My heart hammered, and acrid tears blurred my vision. The weight of impotence settled on me like a boulder of failure, crushing my skin and bones, leaving me as a pathetic heap on the chilly cavern ground.
The apostles renewed their chanting, reciting an ancient language, with their hands weaving around them. Air crackled, and the fire sparked.
Their flesh split, feathers bursting through skin and jutting from pores.
Grotesque forms ruptured from within, flensing their skin and morphing them into the gnarled demonic forms granted to them for their profane devotion.
Sharp grins elongated into curved beaks, glaring eyes simmered yellow and reflected the fire’s hellish light.
Curled fists shredded into hooked talons, and arms erupted into stretched out wings.
I was a helpless witness to their abominable transformations.
The stolas I knew as Timothy curved his long neck toward me.
From somewhere in his feathers, he withdrew a dagger, and the blade’s surface sparkled against the fire’s glow.
His talons clacked on the stone as he prowled closer, leaving the other stolas to chant and herald the arrival of their eldritch master.
A cold sweat formed on my skin, and my pulse pounded in my ears.
I kicked at the stone, trying to scramble away from the dagger rising above me. The runes carved in the blade glinted gold, and my heart lurched.
They had Luther’s dagger.
And it would be the death of me.