Chapter 49
Forty-Nine
The mother of ghouls stood behind Kosmina, a nine-foot horror.
Adham’s sand was useless when this female could rip off his mate’s head without blinking. A single graze and Kosmina could succumb again. Her eyes, now so clear, were stark, but she somehow held herself still.
More sentries skulked from tunnels into the cavern, readying for a battle. Standoff.
Adham was crazed to defend Kosmina. Yet this queen was no ordinary monster; only cold logic would prevail here.
Movement out of the corner of his eye.
Lothaire tensed to attack with his bare hands.
“She’s a primordial. Do not dare,” Adham commanded him. He would take Lothaire’s own head before he allowed anyone to jeopardize Kosmina.
“What does she want, sorcerer? She’s sentient. To a point.” That earned Lothaire a hiss from the queen.
Yes, Adham spied something knowing in her gaze. At length, she nodded at his palms.
Kristoff murmured, “She wants your sorcery. For what . . . ?” He trailed off as another quake rumbled. The mountain groaned and seemed to adjust its position. “Ah. I finally scent what she’s after.”
Lothaire turned his attention to a spot in the distance. “A couple of miles away, there’s a crack in the far wall of this cavern.” Adham could barely make out a fracture about two inches wide. “I scent the mortal realm just beyond it, but it’s too small for a monster and her army to escape. She must know what the sorcerer did to those boulders and wants him to pulverize her way out of here.” Lothaire added, “See, Kristoff, as I said: if an entry exists, then an exit will as well.”
He snapped, “Is this really the time?”
Adham grated, “Will you two stop bickering?”
Kosmina dared to whisper, “She wants to reach her twin brother and mate. He went to the mortal realm, but he got trapped there.”
“Yeah.” Lothaire sucked his teeth. “About her mate. So a certain witch broke into a certain wizard’s haunted house?—”
“Ahh-wooooooo,” sounded from somewhere within the hive.
Lothaire’s head swung around. “We know that sound. The hellhounds are crashing this party.” Growls joined those howls to make an undead chorus. “Revenants and wendigos too. I think everyone’s gotten the memo that Nightside has been canceled—and that there’s one way out.”
With a wave of her free hand, the queen sent a number of ghouls to beat back the invasion.
A steam vent shot open beneath one sentry, flash-cooking green skin from yellow bones. The smell of gore and sulfur filled the cavern.
Adham addressed the queen: “We all need to leave now . Give the vampire to me, and we can resume this on the other side. But if you claw her, I will scour you until you’re not even a memory.”
Another quake. More boulders whistled through the air as they rained from the ceiling, pounding to the ground and flattening the queen’s guards.
The primordial hissed again with frustration—until the cavern shifted like a house of cards.
That cracked wall in the distance ruptured, the fracture forking down like a growing bolt of lightning. Within moments it had stretched to a couple of feet in width, a new rift. The nighttime sky of another world became visible. The land of mortals.
The queen’s yellow gaze darted to the opening; Kosmina swallowed; the vampires froze; Adham didn’t dare breathe?—
Kosmina suddenly twisted from the queen’s grip and dropped like a blur, kicking backward from the ground to strike one of the ghoul’s knees.
I recognize that move , he thought as he swarmed the primordial with sand.
As Kosmina scrambled out of the way, he unleashed his power. The queen shrieked with fury and fought his sand with her monstrous frame. Baring fangs and claws at them, she charged through the tornadoes. Fuck, she’s strong.
Voice strained, he said. “Were you scratched, Mina?”
“No, I’m okay.”
“Watch yourself,” Lothaire warned. “You must not make that creature bleed.”
He bit out, “I’ve got this.” But the primordial kept coming, digging in against him.
“Uh, Adham?” Kosmina said from beside him.
With another wave of his hand, he used the cyclones to sweep the queen off the ground, taking away her momentum. Wrestling against her strength, he funneled the thrashing creature back to the other side of the cavern, toward the throne of her doomed queendom.
“Good show, Sandman,” Lothaire said. “And with nary a drop of blood spilled.”
“I can only hold her suspended there for so long. Let’s go.” He kept his sorcery focused behind him, and they all charged toward Nightside’s sole exit. Already the rift had started to rebound, the weight of the mountain pressing down on the opening.
Having just emerged from rubble, Adham would now face another gauntlet of stone. If it closed, could he somehow pry it open? Probably not without bringing the entire hive down upon their heads.
More howls sounded. Throughout the mountain, undead factions met the ghouls, fighting each other to reach the rift. Other tunnels would lead them straight here.
“Go!” Kristoff yelled from behind Adham and Kosmina. “Faster!” The vampire had realized the same problem. “If we miss that opening, an army will descend upon us.”
As Lothaire brought up the rear, he said, “Are those friends of yours?”
Adham narrowed his eyes at a sight far ahead. Enti, Pearl, Xodin, and several castle dwellers had just emerged from a side tunnel and were sprinting toward the opening. “Not exactly,” he replied.
The sorceress and her inner circle must’ve sneaked into the hive right behind Adham and ahead of the undead. No wonder she’d stopped masking the quakes—she’d been running across Nightside at the time.
Over her shoulder, Enti blew them a kiss as she passed through the rift. “I took your advice. And more! Turns out, the realm is dying.” She added something, but more boulders fell, drowning out her words.
And then they were gone.