Ronen
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Ifell back against the table, rubbing my face, probably spreading the lingering sand everywhere. Now she had a foothold. One I had no idea what she’d do with. I believed that was the terrifying, gut-twisting point. It almost killed me as much as giving her the one emotion I didn’t want to.
“Did you gain what you were looking for from that unnecessarily loud argument?” Cato inquired.
Seven Hells.
It was only then that I recalled the words the hellion used, revealing what she was to me.
I stood, all my anxiety moving aside for my praesidium.
Cato and I never had problems. I respected his space when I came in here, and he respected mine.
That would all change if he dared utter a word of what he heard to anyone, specifically Lucifer.
“Will you tell him?”
“No. He’s not in his right mind. I’m here to advise you to check on him. He’s still locked either in his rooms or the hall.”
Dammit.
I nodded and turned away to do just that.
It’d always been my plan. Except after I showered and talked with Anya.
But the fact that Lucifer still hadn’t come out forced him to the top of my pressing matters list. Plus, the hellion wanted me to check whether Lucifer had a Velatus Rune.
She’d piqued my curiosity with her favor.
What did she think her father was hiding?
“I’d consider the consequences of free-falling into a bond at this time.”
Free-falling? More like she came streaking across my night sky and utterly entrapped me in her devastating light. There was no falling. She came. She destroyed. Now she was building me into a shape that’d only fit with hers.
“Lucifer will come out of this.”
I had to believe that. I would not rule Hell. I would not give her up.
Cato stared at me, unblinking and unmoving. He gave no indication of his thoughts or judgments.
“His cordistella’s soul is dangling by a shrinking thread of time.”
“Then why isn’t he figuring out a way to open the gates?”
Cato blinked. “Why indeed.” He clasped his hands within his billowing robes and turned. “Let me know if you find a rune on the king,” he called back as he walked away.
I left the quiet library, heading toward Lucifer’s chambers.
His hall stretched empty before me. My normally soft footsteps padded loudly on the red carpet, interrupting the odd cracking and popping that teased my eardrums. It may have been late, but not seeing a single castle worker scurry by didn’t bode well.
My breath became a thick cloud of vapor the closer I got to his rooms.
After rounding the corner, I stopped.
Frost crowned the carpet, licked up the walls, coated the fireless sconces, and covered every other surface within reach.
The hall practically screamed with Lucifer’s emotional instability.
No wonder no one remained in this area. They were probably too scared Lucifer would turn them into an ice statue. Which wasn’t uncommon.
The same thick coating of ice blocked his door.
I should’ve brought MJ with me. Stepping back, I unleashed my shadows, gathering them until their vaporous wisps solidified into a large black battering ram.
Then I slammed them into the ice. A loud boom echoed down the hallway, shaking the sconces and vibrating the windows.
Yet it did nothing but add a few fissures to the barrier.
I did it again and again, hoping I didn’t shatter the glass with the aftershocks before I broke through Lucifer’s ice.
He had to hear me. Anyone within this wing would. So why the hell wasn’t he letting me in?
Sweat slicked down my neck, adding to the dried grime from earlier.
Holding my shadows in a solid form and using them with force took a lot of energy.
They were better equipped to slip into heads than break down doors.
After the tenth fucking attempt, the ice shattered, leaving the wood and his door-handle seal in place.
If I twisted the knob, it’d prick me, taste my blood, and refuse my entry.
Good thing a damned door-handle seal wouldn’t stop me.
Tired, sweaty, and pissed off, I kicked in the wood. Time had long passed for decorum.
Wood splinters crunched beneath my boots as I slowly entered.
Ice glinted across every surface of his sitting room—sharp as a Hellhound’s teeth.
It stretched down from the decorative ceiling and smothered the wallpaper, hiding the red and black beneath a coating of white.
I moved farther inside, my breath clouding around me and the sweat on my neck freezing.
If not for my uniform, I wasn’t sure I could withstand being inside his rooms.
Lucifer lounged in his iced-over leather chair, staring into the one place untouched by his power. Flames cast an ominous glow over his profile, reflecting off the large glass of liquor in his other hand.
“Have you done any of your duties since we last talked?” I demanded.
He twirled his crystal tumbler, amber liquid splashing over the rim. “Souls have been judged. Sent to their rightful places.”
That was something at least.
“And the blockades on the doors?”
Lucifer clicked his tongue as if considering his words. “Can you blame me for wanting to wallow alone, General?”
We were well past wallowing and had entered toxic territory. His daughter behaved better than this, although I imagined part of that had to do with the fact that she’d been busy with other things—like the pet. That was my next pressing matter. One I dreaded more than this conversation.
“That explains your doors, but why the hall? If you’re judging souls, how are they getting in?”
He stood, stumbling into his end table. “Same way they always do.” A small grimace tightened his face before smoothing over. “Once they come, I drag them in. Ice can be melted as quickly as it’s formed.”
He drags them in? So he wasn’t using any help.
I pressed my lips together. “Why block them at all?”
He raised his glass high, toasting me and splashing more onto his wrinkled gray suit. “So bastards like you don’t come in and steal my drink.”
“I wouldn’t need to if the King of Hell would do his due diligence to his citizens. Have you not seen the state of Hell or the flyer threatening the souls in your kingdom?”
“Obviously not,” he said around a mouthful of alcohol. “Report your findings, General.”
I told him about the state of Hell and how Hoar Hollow had become a ghost town.
“Melting, huh? That’s different.”
“That’s all you have to say, Lucifer?”
I wanted to shatter every bottle of liquor he had left. Unfortunately, it’d be a worthless pursuit since he seemed to have drunk almost every drop from his seven crystal decanters. The largest one had a finger’s worth of alcohol left.
He stalked toward me, something odd glinting in his double-ringed eyes. The glassy sheen of alcohol? It wasn’t like I’d ever seen him this way.
“If you’d lost a cordistella, you wouldn’t be too inclined to get up and run a kingdom either.”
“You are the king! You’re responsible for this kingdom!
You should be figuring out a plan to fix our immediate threats instead of pushing them aside by drinking yourself numb.
The only sound directive you gave so far was to find a cure, and even that you revoked with no insight on how to help Sam!
You were made to—” I took a deep breath, trying to find a shred of sympathy.
“Have you at least come up with any other ideas on how to open the gates?”
That task at least pertained to his beloved and, by default, Hell’s other problem.
“Open the gates?” He rubbed a finger over his lip in contemplation.
“Yes.”
Why did it seem like this was the first time he’d thought about them?
“To save my cordistella’s soul,” he whispered, about to take another drink.
I snatched the glass from his hand and chucked it into the fireplace. The flames hissed as the glass shattered.
“It’s time you stopped drinking.”
He considered me, lifted his unshaven chin, and grabbed my shoulder. His grip bit through the leather, bruising my skin beneath it.
“Thanks for this enlightening conversation. I’ll take it under advisement. But next time, if I want a babysitter, I’ll ask for one.” His threatening words lost some of their bite with his intoxication. “Now get out, shadow-wielder.”
I seized the back of his neck, pressing my fingers in just as hard. His eyes flashed; mine darkened.
“What about the gates and the infection? We think they’re building an army.”
His hold tightened, and I mirrored him, feeling the raised bumps of a rune I’d never noticed before.
“I’ll handle the gates. And you do what you do best.” He paused, his forehead creasing with pain. “Let my daughter save you.”
Then his face smoothed out and he slammed a powerful icy wind into my chest, throwing me out of his rooms. He quickly re-erected the ice-wall, covering a stare that had seemed far clearer than it should’ve been.
My shadows pounded inside me, warning me. Something else was going on here. I couldn’t pinpoint what, though. I needed to tell Cato and Lucille about the rune on his neck, then find someone to track his movements.
I stopped by the dungeons before bed, the rotten stench as potent as the last time I’d come. I hoped that made the little present I carried for the flirty prisoner all the more enticing.
The moment I neared Anya’s cell, she dropped her book and grinned. “The steamy general has come to grace my humble abode? What did I do to earn such an honor?” Anya purred.
“I’ve come to ask some questions.”
Her long hair spilled to the side as she tilted her head, looking intrigued. The soul-wound always hidden beneath her high turtleneck edged the fabric line, pink and gaping.
“Oh? Does the general finally believe in my divination power?”
“We’ll see.” I crouched onto the grimy stone floor, the contents of the bag clinking as I set it down.
I pulled out vials of scented oils, gold hair clips, and a fresh pair of clothes.
“First, tell me about it. And what do you call yourself? A witch?” A human playing with plants and chanting to the sky?
She eyed the supplies the way Rune eyed Dorus’s raw cuts of meat. “Move me further away from the delightfully disgusting stench.”
“Deal.” I carefully tucked the items back into the bag. “Now talk.”
She grinned, leaning against her cell bars, her eyes following the oils I put away. “I prefer the term seer, baby. And the visions come randomly. If I had my tools, I could direct them better, but alas, I died, and now they’re gathering dust on Earth.”
“Are there more of you?”
She shrugged. “I’ve been in Hell. I’m not sure.” Her tone softened at the end, her gaze drifting. “A long time ago, there used to be many of us.”
“What happened?”
She lifted her head, something churning deep in her eyes. “Angels.”
The answer didn’t surprise me. Under Etan’s influence, Gabriel and I murdered many humans thought to practice witchcraft. Whether we believed they had true power or not didn’t matter; Etan wanted them dead.
“Is that how…” I gestured to the side of her neck.
Anya chuckled. “No. That was from my mother. I was a true disappointment and paid for it.” Her smile sharpened. “But you didn’t come down here to hear my trauma. Ask me what you really want to know.”
“Do you know anything about blood-witches or their abilities?”
The humor on her face vanished. Then she went preternaturally still.
“Anya?” I stepped forward, waving a hand in front of her glazed-over eyes. She didn’t even blink. “Anya!”
She startled back, colliding with her bedframe.
“What just happened?” I demanded, moving aside so the firelight could shine into her cell. The bars’ shadows slashed across her ghostly white face as she gripped the frame, her pointed nails scraping the wood.
“A vision.” She tipped her head toward the ceiling.
I followed her line of sight, only finding damp stone. “Of what?”
Her eyes flicked to mine—humorless, haunted. “Of teeth,” she said softly. “And what they leave behind.”