Lucy
My screams echo around the demonic library as Interitus sinks her claws into my calf and drags me away from the wall. There’s no way I’m dead, not when I’m in this much pain. She wrenches her fingers out of my calf. Blood pools under me.
There’s a flash of fluff and white in the corner of my eye. Mortem leaps at the nearest bookcase, but he doesn’t weigh enough to push it over. He must realise the problem because he hops up onto the table and backs up.
I could laugh, his plump belly waddling in reverse. I’m so screwed. There’s no way he’s going to be able to—
For one brief moment, the pain abates as my jaw sags, my entire focus on the ball of fluff charging at the bookcase at a speed that should be illegal for a cat that full of tuna.
He lurches off the end of the table, leaping with all the might he can muster and careens into the bookcase. It groans, wobbles and then tips.
I snap my attention back to Interitus, who frowns and turns a moment too late.
The case topples and she crashes to the ground under the weight of hundreds of old leather tomes.
Mortem hops on top of the pile and licks his paw. “You better adopt a pretty pussy when we get back to Ora.”
“Do you want to be any shallower?”
“Do you want to be any more ungrateful? I just saved your life. I generously accept your offer of adopting a pretty lady. Now. Move…”
We need to leave but my leg is in agony. A searing heat shoots from the puncture wounds.
“I need to wrap my leg,” I say and shred the end of my robe as fast as I can to create a makeshift bandage. I hobble out of the way of all the fallen tomes as a moan spills out from under the pile.
“Go,” Mortem meows.
I do, hobbling as quickly as the pain will allow. As we leave the library, I shove a table against the door. Not that it will stop her for long, but I’ll take any advantage I can get.
There’s a shriek in the distance.
“Wraiths,” Mortem says.
I don’t wait for instructions, I start shuffling forward. The minute we round the corner into the next corridor, the source of the shrieking is apparent. The noise of the books falling must have alerted every damn creature in the underworld.
A swarm of wraiths hovers at the end of the corridor. Our movement alerts them, and their spindle-like necrotic limbs skitter and scurry towards me.
I back up, one step two, pain lancing through my calf with every movement. I’ll take the pain all night as long as I keep moving away from those things.
I dart down another corridor in the opposite direction, an idea forming. We keep sprinting, Mortem huffing angry little puffs of breath through his nostrils, his butt wiggling up and down, tail erect.
We skid into the main spiral staircase again and my heart plummets. This is where we were when Interitus found us last time.
“Same door?” I ask.
He doesn’t stop, just pads right up to it and nudges the corner, using his paw and claws to try and open it. “Meow.”
“I’ve got it,” I say and open the door, then gasp.
It opens to the outdoors. I glance down at Mortem, but he doesn’t seem surprised. He trots through, nonchalant, like we don’t have half a dozen monsters and a feral fallen angel chasing us. I close the door behind us and sink to the ground.
We’re by a river, but it’s darker than any river I’ve seen before and I dread thinking what’s lurking inside it.
I turn to glance at the door and gasp. It’s the most exquisite building I’ve ever seen.
The door we came out of is nestled in the peak of a turret.
This tower is identical to Finis, only inverted.
The tower spike is buried into the ground and with every floor up, the tower gets wider and wider.
More windows, more doors, spiralling up, up, up, piercing the dark clouds until I can no longer see the top or, maybe more accurately, the bottom?
How that enormous structure balances on a tiny spike is beyond me. It’s a feat of architectural genius.
Underworld magic, clearly. The same long windows I saw in the circular staircase stretch up the side of the tower. Stone arches and dozens of gargoyles litter the exterior. All of them chattering and muttering to each other.
I glance back at the river. It cuts through what I assume are the tower’s grounds.
Everywhere I look, we’re enclosed by trees and shrubs.
In one direction are secluded gardens of desiccating roses and dozens of fungi; to my right is an enormous maze made of bones, where the odd shade drifts in and out of the open sections.
No wraiths, though. They seem to be contained inside for now.
In the distance is a city, and in the other direction lie the fungus fields. The river flows at a slow and leisurely pace, but the dark water builds a carnal desire within me to run.
Mortem bounces up to the river like he’s going to throw himself in. He swings his paw through the surface, and I fling myself at him right as he loses his footing. My calf pulses and throbs, blood oozes over the makeshift bandage and down my ankle.
But I manage to grab his tail.
He hisses as my other hand slides under his belly and pulls him back upright. And to my astonishment there is a little fish, flopping and flapping, clenched in his paw.
He has what I can only describe as a self-satisfied grin on his face.
His eyes slow-blink at me before he brings the wriggling fish to his mouth and bites half of it off in one go.
Fish guts and goo slide down my fingers, and I squeal, dropping the fucking cat and plunging my hand in the river with zero regard for whatever creatures lurk in the murky water.
I’d rather risk my life with them than smell like fish innards.
“Vile,” I mumble.
“You are, in fact, correct. This fish…” he shakes his paw, flinging yet more droplets of fish guts over my robes and the ground. “Is disgusting.”
“How disappointing,” I drawl.
“It is, actually.” He sighs in a dramatic fashion and flops down on his paws.
I examine the haphazard bandage I applied.
I’ve long since bled through it, so I loosen it, ball it up and leave it beside the river.
Then I shred a fresh piece of fabric and retie it.
My wounds seem to have dried, like they’re attempting to crust over.
They’re healing. Weirder, the runes around the wound are glowing brighter than all the other ones on my leg.
There’s a constant thrum inside me now, and I’m certain it’s the runes.
“The dead don’t heal, right?” I ask.
“We can be pulled apart and destroyed but not injured.” He trots over and draws his tongue up my leg, licking up the congealed blood.
I wince, and swat him and his coarse tongue away. “You really are the most disgusting cat I’ve ever encountered.”
“You really are the whiniest creature I’ve ever encountered.”
How he can like the taste of stale blood I will never know. “Listen. You said the wraiths are pouring into Ora, right?”
“They were. I expect they’ll have sealed the tear by now,” Mortem meows.
He rubs a paw over his face as if I exhaust him.
“But wraiths get in all the time?”
He meows confirmation, followed by, “I really am starving.”
I glare at him. “You get tuna when I am somewhere safe not being hunted by fallen angel professors or wraiths.”
He flops, resting his head on his paws. If he were human, he’d look like a petulant five-year-old.
“Now what?” He opens his mouth for a giant yawn. “Is it nap time?”
“Oh yeah, sure, being the only living thing in the underworld and sitting in the open feels like a great idea.”
“Sarcastic much?”
For my sanity, I choose to ignore him. “Process of elimination. We know I couldn’t get through the stone portal in the library, so we try a normal Veil tear. If I can’t get through that, then…”
“You could hitchhike.”
“Come again?”
He tilts his head. “You need a soul to get into Ora, so maybe steal a shade and piggyback through.”
I frown at him, open my mouth to tell him that’s a ridiculous idea, but he might be on to something. I file it away for consideration.
“What about them?” He bumps his head into one of the runes on my wrist.
“I’m not sure.”
“Can you read them?”
I slouch. “Not yet, but if I have enough time, I think I could. They’re very close to both celestial runes and demonic ones. Almost like a hybrid of both. I think if I could study them, I’d be able to find the patterns and decipher enough to figure them out.”
“But not quickly.”
I shake my head.
He suddenly leaps up, his fur all standing on end.
“Eleven o’clock,” he says and darts in the other direction.
In the distance, lurking in the shadows of decaying trees is a dark, amorphous shape. It writhes like wraiths do. A sinewy arm pokes out or a mangled foot. Yeah, definitely a wraith.
“Let’s go,” I say.
The cluster of wraiths jerks and then vanishes behind the decayed shrubbery. Mortem spots a mouse, hisses and darts in and out of the bush at a thousand miles per hour.
“Shh! If we’re going to try and follow a wraith out, the last thing we want is to get caught,” I whisper to Mortem.
The tower’s gardens get sparser as we leave the safety of the complex. What used to be a perimeter wall is decayed and chipped. It stands decrepit and crumbled on the edge of the tower’s property line.
We stay crouched next to it, observing first. The underworld is perpetually dim, the clouds never ceasing to billow and plume grey streaks and moody lighting. It’s the type of dark that crawls under your skin, dragging nightmares and lice with it.
“I didn’t realise the underworld had a nighttime,” I say.
Mortem pads closer to me.
Outside the city and the tower complex, the land is barren. The river drifts and meanders over the planes, but there’s little life down here. Fungus grows in irregular patches. The skeletons of what once were luscious trees and dense bushes litter the ground like roadkill carcasses.
We follow the wraiths from a safe distance. And by safe, I mean as far back as we can get without losing sight of them.
“You need to move your arse and get closer if you want to be able to jump through a Veil tear. They don’t exactly stay open long,” Mortem says.
“Would you like to be the scout?”
He opens his furry mouth and then shuts it again.
“That’s what I thought.”
The ground rumbles, I’m knocked off my feet and the wraiths surge forward.
“This is it,” Mortem says, nudging me to get up. He hisses at me and jerks away from my body, his fur harried and sticking on end like someone rubbed a balloon on him and made him static. His tongue sweeps out and licks at his nose.
“What the—” His eyes widen as he takes in another group of wraiths surging towards us.
My body runs cold. If this doesn’t work, we’re screwed. I don’t think I can fight that many wraiths. At least not on my own.
“GO,” I scream.
He lurches forward and runs towards the wraiths. The Veil fabric rips, a squelching sound that ripples around us as the wraiths surge into Ora City.
“Wait, there’s one more,” he says.
I halt, waiting for the last wraith to slither into my home world.
“Now,” I say and give his butt a shove. He trots forward full speed and slips through the rip, vanishing.
I follow.
Only I don’t. Because I find myself flat on my back staring up at the Veil tear from the ground.
“Lucy?” Mortem says, appearing above me.
“Do not even think about lic—”
His sandpaper tongue licks my face.
“You little shit.”
He purrs but it sounds more like a laugh than contentment.
“You need to hurry up, there’s more wraiths coming and the Veil is closing,” he says, pawing at my arm.
I get up, my brows furrowed, a tang on my tongue. “The thing is, I did try. I don’t think I’m getting through, not as I am.”
“Oh shit,” he says, padding backwards. Shrieks fill the air as the second group of wraiths approaches.
I lurch forward, not willing to give up my chance to reach Ora City. I fling myself at the Veil tear one last time, only to crash into the fabric and bounce backwards.
The wraiths shriek and holler as I clatter to the floor. Most of the group push through the tear but it closes, leaving two of them behind.
And now they’re pissed I got in their way.
They turn on me, all hollow gaping mouths and necrotic limbs. The air fills with the scent of stale coffee, stagnant water and decaying mushrooms.
I want to throw up.
They stalk across the earth towards me. Mortem is bouncing on his toes, unable to do anything other than hiss like a snake.
“Move,” he says.
But I can’t. I’m frozen, my feet leadened. They leer over me, mouths opening so horribly wide it makes my fingers tingle.
My body reacts, vibrating harder, louder, faster. At first, I think my skin grows hot, but as I stare at my arms, I realise it’s the runes. They glow like the centre of a winter fire.
Mortem backs up, no longer hissing, but his fur is on end again as if I’m the one making him all static.
“Lucy,” he breathes. “Stop it. Whatever it is, maybe don’t do that, ’kay?”
“I… I can’t control it.”
“Figure it out. If it helps, I promise to never ask for tuna again. But I really think you need to—”
The wraith closest to me swings an arm back and hurtles it towards my face.
My eyes slam shut. My body is so hot sweat pours down my neck.
The vibrations clatter my teeth and reverberate in my chest. Even though my lids are slammed shut, it’s bright enough my vision stings.
My body stiffens, the searing heat courses through me.
The smell of summer and rainbows and warm breezes drifts around me and then it morphs and all I smell is burning.
I expect the hit to come. But it doesn’t.
I wait.
Wait some more.
Still nothing.
I sneak a peek, peeling a lid open and gasp.
Where the wraiths were standing are two scorch marks forming a pattern like a firework explosion. In the centre of the scorch marks are two crumbled piles of blackened ash.
I glance behind me, where Mortem is trembling, his eyes startled wide, fur more static than I’ve ever seen it.
“Mortem…” I say, inching towards him but he backs up, and up.
“Hey, buddy, it’s just me.”
But he dives under the nearest bush carcass and howls.