Chapter Sixteen
Sixteen
“What kind of cryptic shit was that?” I ask Luke.
“I’ll tell you when we’re out of here.” Luke takes a turn so sharp my struggling feet stumble beneath me. Seeing me nearly eat shit, he slings the duffel from my shoulder to his in a fluid motion. “We have minutes, maybe seconds before dawn. If we don’t make it—”
He stops and I ram right into his back. Any normal person would topple over, but Luke barely budges. “Why did you—”
“Looks like you’re in a rush,” a voice taunts. I peek from behind Luke—and wish I hadn’t. Denim stands in all his hairy, hell hound glory, and he’s flanked by four beings of similar muscly stature. They bare their teeth like the mutts they are.
Luke procures his obsidian blade. I follow suit.
“I have a message for you to bring back to your boss,” Luke says. “Can you do that for me, Badulf?”
The grin on Denim’s—Badulf’s—face grows. “I reckon you’ll get to do it yourself when we finally throw you at his feet. And the girl, too.”
“Funny. Arrogance is what led Zekiel to sputtering at the end of my blade as I pushed him off the roof of a moving train. If only you could have joined him.”
Badulf’s eyes flick toward the sky. “I reckon we’ll be reunited soon enough.”
“Not soon enough for me.” Luke lunges, slashing out with the dagger.
Badulf expects the attack for himself, so he doesn’t have time to react when Luke pivots and slices the blade in an arc across the throat of the hell hound to his left.
The being can’t even summon a scream before disintegrating in a swirl of black-and-plum shadows.
It leaves four, including Badulf, and they all pile on Luke at once.
Feeling utterly helpless, I clutch the dagger, trying to find an in where I might be of assistance.
Despite the uneven matchup, Luke has no problem holding his own.
He fights like a character from an action movie, twisting to evade before diving back into the fray with his dagger always leading.
Another hell hound bursts into shadows, concealing all of them for a moment.
The sky grows lighter despite the thick clouds overhead. Dawn is coming. Dawn is here.
“Luke!” I yell as he fatally stabs another hell hound. “We have to go! The sky!”
He glances up, and that momentary distraction is all that Badulf and the remaining hell hound need to pounce on him. His dagger goes flying in the opposite direction, skidding off the cobblestones and to the dirt ground beyond. The exit of the Night Market. We’re so, so close.
Luke’s still trying to elbow his way free, so I make an executive decision and rush them. I’m not nearly as fast, or as coordinated, but I manage to catch the side of the nameless hound with a nasty gash. He howls as black blood flows and shadows take him, releasing Luke.
“Catch!” I toss Luke my dagger. He snatches it out of the air, plunging it deep into Badulf’s chest in the same motion. The two hell hounds disappear as one, floating to join the clouds above as lightning streaks through them, practically right over our heads.
“Come on!” Luke yells, his voice caught in a sudden roar of wind. I run down the alley with him, the gale pushing against me like it’s trying to lock me inside the Night Market. Hopelessness crashes over me like a wave, making tears sting my eyes.
“What’s happening?” I scream, my voice snatched from my lungs. “Luke?”
“I’m here!” His hand wraps around mine, warm and secure as he tugs me toward an exit I can no longer see.
We’re suddenly in the eye of a tornado, violet lightning flashing around us as the plum clouds become fog-like, coating the air so I can’t see anything at all.
All I know is Luke’s palm and the distant scream of a song breaking through the vicious wind.
It’s the fiddler, but his voice is chilling and raw, grating against my ears where it once was joyful.
“They’re coming back, they always do,
The monsters will come for you,
So this warning hymn I sing,
To celebrate The Reckoning.”
“We’re almost there!” Luke promises, dragging me through the wind. “Hold on—”
The wind stops, and all the dirt and debris it swept up falls like a single sheet of rain. Luke barrels on, passing the last of the tents. Hand clutching his, I step out of the Night Market.
But cry out as claws sharp as knives dig into the skin of my other arm.
My hold with Luke breaks as I’m roughly yanked back, sending Luke careening away from me onto the dirt. Blinking my contacts back into focus, I stare up into the worst possible face.
“It’s just not your day, is it?” Badulf grins down at me.
Despite my having just watched him get sucked up in a swirl of smoke and shadows, he’s wholly here and, to my horror, not alone. He’s flanked by the other hell hounds we just sent packing, and also by Flannel. Or Zekiel, as Luke referred to him, who rolls out a kink in his neck.
“Let her go!” Luke snarls, my dagger in his hand as he storms toward us.
But we don’t have time to fight. With the clouds gone, the sky is in full view.
It’s the most beautiful shade of lilac. Or at least, it would be beautiful, if it didn’t mean dawn was here, and I’m still inside the Night Market.
“It’s really not my day,” I agree with Badulf. “But not many are. I’m used to it at this point.”
I let his yanking win so I slam against his chest, putting me entirely too close to the pungent, decaying stench of his breath.
I throw my head forward as hard as I can, and stars blast across my vision when my skull makes gruesome acquaintance with his nose.
His black blood spurts onto my face and I use the last of my wits to shove at him.
He flies into the other hell hounds and they fall like dominoes against the trembling cobblestones.
“Brie!” Luke tugs me so harshly that I crash against him.
We go down together, rolling backward in the dirt.
A deafening pop fills the air, like a needle taken to a balloon, and I right myself in time to watch the Night Market collapse in a shaking, shuddering avalanche of color.
A blink later, it’s gone, taking the hell hounds with it and leaving nothing to convince me it was ever there in the first place.
Just cracked pavement and dirt and yellowing grass.
Luke pants, each rise and fall of his chest making me move with him. He stares at me with wide eyes, lips parted in shock.
“Hi,” I squeak, unable to ignore our position. Me on top of him, every part of us pressed flush and our legs tangled. His heart hammers beneath my palm, so reassuring it takes everything in me not to rest my ear on his chest to count the beats.
“You terrify me,” he admits. The words send a shiver down my sweat-soaked back.
“Was watching me headbutt a monster not on today’s agenda?”
His laugh catches in his throat. “Definitely not.”
He’s not pushing me off, and I would get off myself, I would, but I can’t remember the mechanics of moving my limbs. Besides, his hand is on my back, warm and weirdly comforting, keeping me in place.
“I bet you really regret bringing me now, huh?” I joke weakly.
A frown creases his brow. “Not yet.”
“Jury’s still out.” My words sound light, but between our proximity and the heat between us, the feeling is everything but. Especially when I shyly question, “Why did you let me come, anyway?”
“I think something’s wrong with the veil separating the worlds, which is how Beliar got into the overworld to begin with. If that’s true, then he can probably get back. And if I’m here, and you’re there, then—”
He breaks off, gaze sticking on my lips.
“Then what?” I prod.
“Then I can’t protect you if we’re worlds apart.”
My sharp intake of breath is masked by his chuckle and my whole body rumbles with the movement. His thumb ghosts over what might be the imprint of Badulf’s nose in my forehead. A great souvenir that fucking hurts. “Not that you need my protection, clearly.”
His words have left my own mushed up on my tongue like chewed-up food.
To my dismay, his hands gently shift me off him and onto the dirt.
He grabs my duffel from where he dropped it.
Rifling through it, he adds, “I also let you come because I figured Krystal might want a friend. I don’t know what conditions Beliar is keeping her in, but I can guess they’re nothing good. She’ll need you.”
She’ll need you. I haven’t been needed in a long time.
To get past the lump growing in my throat, I ask, “What are you looking for?”
“Water.”
“I could use some water,” I agree as he finds it. I finally push myself up with a wince. My cut knee stings like a bitch.
Luke proceeds to dump the entire remains of my bottle onto my face, soaking me in seconds. “Um, excuse you?”
“We need to wash the hound’s blood off before it burns you badly. It’s ichor. Demon blood.”
He wipes my face with the hem of his shirt, which is hot in theory since I’m nearly eye level with his crotch. Tilting my chin up to the sky, he uses his thumb to rub the remaining ichor off with a level of care that grants him a much-improved bedside manner report.
“Isn’t that hurting you?” I ask.
“I’m used to it,” he replies, brows creased in concentration. “And sorry for giving no warning. I didn’t want it to sit on your skin and scar.”
I touch my face, feeling how sensitive the skin is where the ichor was on it.
“Thanks,” I say, though my voice sounds hollow as I stare up at him, and he stares down at me.
His gaze burns with an intensity that makes me clear my throat, averting my own eyes to the ground.
Something shimmers within reach. “Oh, hey. Your dagger.”
Picking it up, I stand and hold it out to him. “Trade ya?”
He pulls mine from where he tucked it in his belt and hands it to me, taking his. They’re identical, so it’s a silly swap, but somehow feels necessary.