Chapter 19
Down the green hill, where it was nestled in its safe little valley, there was no welcoming glow coming from the Hope family’s farmhouse. I’d never seen it so cold. Someone had put a fresh wreath of flowers over the gravestone in front of the house. Derrick’s?
“I’m in love with you.”
I gasped and turned my head back to Peter. I’d forgotten he was there with me in the steel light of early evening. He was a rippling pond of emotions, and it was so inappropriate to laugh, but — I was laughing.
He wouldn’t let go of my hands, and all I wanted to do was fall back into the indigo sea of grass below and roll with laughter.
“Fallon,” he whined. I tugged my hands harder to be free.
“Hunter.”
I choked on my giggles, and it was as if the grass really had been water all along as I sank into the blue darkness, tumbling backwards until I was back on my feet again in the same place, now with a different vampire glowering at me.
I fought against his locked grip on my hands. He said my name again. Hunter.
“Lazaro. No.” I didn’t dare look down at Hope Ranch and reveal its importance.
“You and I have a destiny,” he whispered hot in my face. Destiny?
I was in the cave again one gentle second later, startled by the thick blackness. I’d slept again, somehow unaware of how painfully uncomfortable my resting place was. I was still so tired that I drifted off a few times, skipping like a stone over the surface of any real sleep.
I want to go home. I wanted out of this dark prison, and for the first time, the strange stone that Cora had given me had weight in my pocket.
I could end this now. Tears were collecting on the outside corners of my eyes, but I paid them no mind.
I had to focus all my attention on moving my body limb by limb, bending one knee then the other, placing my left palm on cold rock, then the right, and squeezing my abs to sit.
I crossed my legs and remained that way, waiting for the fog of dream-heavy sleep to dissipate.
There was something about this cave that made me dream too much, and I reached for the shards in my mind in hopes of making sense of the picture.
If I wanted out of this Hellhole — literal Hellhole?
— I had to make it out with my own strength.
I was beyond tired now, likely weak from dehydration and hunger, exhausted by the new onslaught of stimuli welcomed into my mind by my Blessing.
I wasn’t going to let myself be the only Hunter I knew of to die in this stupid cave, though.
I walked my hands up the wall and stood.
High-pitched chattering called from below, and so I followed it with trodding steps like it was a rope leading to my destination.
The cave was so dark ahead that even with Mary’s Blessing, I couldn’t see a thing, and I had to move forward that way for what could have been hours or more, sweeping with alternating feet to scrape the pebbled cave floor so as not to trip or tumble into some deadly pitfall.
If not for the clinging chill or the thick wall of rotten air, I would have thought I was still dreaming.
Then came the light. The dull orange waving through a deep hole at the flat bottom of the cave was such a welcome sight that I couldn’t stop whatever noise popped out of my throat.
I was happy just to see anything again, though I had no idea what exactly I was seeing.
I had to descend further to get closer, scrambling through the dark until that glow illuminated the edges of the rock pathways enough to see by.
I still had to take halting downward steps until I finally reached that glowing surface.
I fell to a crawl several feet from the bizarre amber opening.
The screams and cries were violent in my ears now, and my teeth chattered as I approached the edge.
I braced both hands at the edge of the rocky maw, stretching out and keeping my center of gravity as far back as I could, fearful that I might lean too far and be dragged into Hell.
The radiant cavity was a near-perfect circle carved in the cave floor.
I bit my lip and peered over the edge, though I had to whip up every ounce of bravery I possessed.
It was the surface of this pit that was glowing with inexplicable light, and though I was too scared to reach a hand out and touch it, if I did, I was certain that it would be solid like glass, or perhaps like taut fabric.
This was magic, crackling with the same electric taste on the edges of my tongue as Cora’s magic had back in the shed.
Was it here to keep me out, or keep something in?
Through the light of the magic, my question was answered.
Vaguely human-shaped shadows moved below, startling me enough that my arms nearly gave out from under me.
I had to sit back on my knees. My shrill scream darted up the cavern like a bat.
I tensed every shaking muscle in my body, but I only quaked more. Shit shit shit…
I was terrified down to the core of my soul, worse even than when I’d first entered the cave and was overwhelmed by my new senses.
Each exhale came as a scream that tore at my raw throat.
I scrambled backwards and lost consciousness again.
I wasn’t sure how long it took for me to emerge from that dreamless dark and back into the screaming mouth of Hell.
I curled up like a child, and I wanted… Derrick, Gabriel, Peter, Diana, Jerica, all of them flashing through my mind, appearing for brief seconds, cradling my head in their laps, soothing me.
My thoughts were disorganized cries from an even darker hole within.
I was failing. How had any Hunters survived this? I needed out. Now. I couldn’t breathe. I was going to die. Hell was real, and it was right under me, and all that kept it from breaking out was a thin coating of magic. Who had done this magic? Cora? Someone worse?
I needed to see more. I needed to look again.
I couldn’t be sure why, but it was Lazaro Reyes who appeared in my mind then.
Maybe I wanted to throw it into his face the next time I saw him that he wasn’t the scariest creature in the world.
I’d faced worse. An hour may have passed before I collected myself and regained enough control over my own body to force myself back to the edge.
I’d never wanted to do anything less in my life, and every inch of movement was an outright battle, but I made it back to the light.
I flew backwards again as one of the shadows, a twisted dark shape twenty or thirty feet below, screeched at me. What the hell was that? Not human, not even vampire. Something worse. I’d seen enough. I wanted out.
My cheeks were wet when I swept my hands across them, but then every part of my body had been soaked through.
I needed to find my way out of this cave.
The throng of growls and screams wasn’t helping me think.
I finally had light to see by, but I had no idea where to go.
My brain threatened to shut down again, but I fought against the falling curtains of unconsciousness this time.
One of the dark pits in the cavern seemed to let out a breath.
I moved closer, and air brushed across my damp skin.
It wasn’t so still and lifeless in this direction, and so I followed the claustrophobic tunnel, even when I had to crawl on hands and knees over the leaking, rocky intestinal tract.
The concert of beastial calls faded behind me as I picked up speed.
Warmth caressed my cheeks. Sounds of life, the whispers of leaves and the joy of birds, called to me.
I crawled despite the ache in my legs and palms, ignoring the tears in my denim pants where my knees kissed bare stone.
I didn’t care. My arms slipped out from under me, and I slid down a rough, jagged chute, scratching my bare skin raw and nearly getting myself jammed upside down before I pitched my lower half back under me and twisted around a sharp curve.
My heart thudded, and there wasn’t a piece of me that wasn’t sore, but I sobbed with relief at the gorgeous sunlight that awaited me like the helping palm of a goddess.
* * *
I stumbled into the welcoming glow of daylight and gulped a deep breath of air once I was out of the cramped stone tunnel.
It was early morning, the rising sun barely spilling through the thick line of trees that climbed up the mountainside.
I found a dusty boulder to rest on so I could regain my bearings.
I had no sense of cardinal direction and no idea of where I was in relation to home, but I was alive and breathing fresh air again.
I laughed, and the lack of echo was a peace I hadn’t thought I’d ever appreciate.
The brown and gray smears on my arms were drying now, cracking and making my skin itch.
My hair crunched, and so I stopped worrying about my appearance for the time being.
The forest was alive with the rustling of animals.
Sweet, natural creatures like deer, squirrels, and birds.
Not like the shadowy figures in the cave that still set my senses on edge, even from my imagination.
This was the world I was protecting. My rest was over.
It was time to go home. Time to do more.
Before I set off, I snapped off a low branch from the aspen nearest to the cave’s exit, throwing my body weight into pulling it free.
With a bit of carving, it would make a fine stake, one that would bring me back to this moment of clarity.
I picked at the leaves while I walked, keeping my body oriented with the sun to my right, moving up the incline of the mountain.
I visualized the cave system beneath my feet.
In all my years of living on this land, I’d never come across any of the other openings, and I’d never considered it going so far beyond that tiny room I’d been sent to during my training.