The Necromancer's Betrayal Read online

  Tivor cleared his throat and gave me an exasperated eyebrow wag. He stretched his fingers out and stopped within a hair’s-breadth of touching Damon’s horse. “I can send you in, but I can’t extract you.”

  “Send me in?”

  He leaned close. “You enter the record and experience the history firsthand. Nothing will hurt you. I suppose the problem for you will be finding your way out.”

  Crap.

  Chapter Three

  I’D IMAGINED sitting behind a desk and flipping through an old, dusty tome, or worn-out scroll. Not venturing into a painting. “So how do I do that?”

  “I don’t know how to explain our power or how we use it to exit the record.”

  Of course. “What happens if I can’t get out?”

  “We have a dessert here. It’s gooey, soft, lumpy.” He smiled, probably the widest he’d ever stretched his lips. “One of my favorites. Your mind will become something similar.”

  Great. Do I risk it? Or sulk back to my life, tail between my legs?

  No. No more sulking. No more life-altering loops.

  I gave Tivor a small nod, and before I could change my mind, was thrust into the middle of a battle, my senses consumed by the jarring sound of steel hitting steel and blood flying around me in copper-scented sprays. Hot drops hit me, but nothing showed on my fingertips when I wiped my cheeks. An orgy of metal, flesh, and blood rose in a hot steam over the valley rimmed by grassy green buttes. If I managed to escape this hellhole, I was going to track down Tivor and mess up his card catalog for dumping me in the middle of this bloodbath.

  A hulking mass of blood-soaked muscle tumbled toward me, his sword lifted above his head. His eyes swirled with the fervor of battle, consumed by the need to slash and tear and pummel. He swung his sword around in a direct line with my neck. I leaped to the side and fell on top of a body, a woman. My face landed next to hers, contorted in an agonized gasp, eyes open, blood draining from a gash that split her head. My body jerked, and I rolled off her and crawled to a somewhat dry patch of grass on the edge of the carnage. The raging demon had not been aiming for me, but at another fighter, who was now headless and sprawled over a pile of bodies. Shit. I fought back a wave of nausea. Tivor said nothing could harm me, but everything seemed so real. The clash of steel and smell of sweat-soaked blood. I half expected to reach for my neck and find it missing.

  “Marchios!”

  I spun at the gruff shout to see a man, dark hair plastered with blood, but with oh-so-familiar eyes. Not Ewan though, but a smaller, more lithe and younger version, crouching beneath a hulking, snarling troll-like beast. I inched closer to get a better look.

  “Tallor!”

  I jumped back when an armor-clad warrior swooped in and sliced the beast’s head off its body. Oh. It was the arms that clued me in. I’d recognize those rippling muscles anywhere. But who was Tallor? His brother?

  The scene lost its sharp edges and blurred, then refocused to reveal an enormous chamber, light blinding in from tall, stained windows. It seemed like something out of a fairytale castle except for the nightmarish scene before me. Ewan kneeled, in chains, before the mangled, bloody body of the same Tallor from the battle. His expression wavered between immense sorrow and fierce rage.

  The breath left my body, and my heart stopped. I engraved the image in my memory, this small sliver that revealed so much about Ewan’s psyche, but still didn’t explain why he’d earned the debt pact. Why had he fought? He’d told me his brother died, but not how. Now I grasped a little more of the guilt he bore over Tallor’s death. In Ewan’s code of warrior honor, Tallor had died because Ewan failed to win the battle. So here he crouched, his body battered and bruised. Jagged gashes bled from his arms, legs, face, everywhere my eyes landed on his beautiful body, still radiating strength despite its tormented physique. A lone tear fell down my cheek.

  Demons spoke in grave tones around me, but I couldn’t understand a damn thing. I scooted behind two women who were wringing their hands, their expressions agonized, unlike the demons, one of whom lacked eyebrows, gathered around Ewan and Tallor. The other demon, whose back was to us, approached Ewan and placed a hand on his head. He angled his face to the crowd, and I gasped at the familiar profile. Malthus. The eyebrow-less demon placed his hand over Malthus’s and spoke in the demon tongue. Ewan bowed his head. The women in front of me whimpered.

  The room suddenly shifted, and my eyeballs vibrated with a nauseating turn of vertigo. The scene before me spun, and my head spun, dropping me to my knees. I squeezed my head with my hands in an attempt to alleviate the whirling pressure. Was this my hourglass draining of sand? I had to leave the record. How did Ewan explain travel through the portal? My head churned, desperately trying to think.

  A demon wanting to breach the portal need only learn how to perceive its way out. Granted, if he makes a mistake, he can wander forever lost in the oblivion of his own mind.

  He’d said he couldn’t control the images his mind had conjured to reach the portal. So how had he done it?

  Soft, gooey dessert.

  I moaned at the shock that shook my skull. Tears streamed down my face from the pain radiating from my head, down my spine.

  The demon palace walls melted away, transforming to night in a place where marble angels lamented over graves. A cemetery. I scratched at the cool, wet grass beneath me. It was real enough, as was the faint smell of pine. I knew this cemetery. I picked myself up off the ground and steadied my swaying body against a tree trunk. When I’d regained my equilibrium, I ran toward a portico, over a small hill, and found what I was looking for nestled between two mausoleums. The simple granite slab of my mother’s grave. But how? Was I really just outside San Francisco, or was this another mental landscape? No sounds penetrated the dead silence of the cemetery. I crossed back over the hill then stopped at the sound of rustling leaves. I stilled my breathing. Did the grave just move? Or was it a trick of the moonlight as it danced over the gravestones? My eyes widened.

  It moved. Grew. Thickened. Stretched out of the ground.

  I backed up and screamed when something caught my ankle.

  Yeah, that was real enough.

  I jerked my foot, but the hand . . . oh shit. A zombie.

  With its bloody, gnarled fingers still clamped around my ankle, it scrambled and scraped out of the earth. I stomped on its bloody, muddy head with my free foot. The skull bones crunched, and it howled, releasing my ankle. I raced across the cemetery to the exit, tended by decrepit wrought iron gates. As I approached, the gates came to life with an ear-piercing creak and began closing.

  I knew with a bloodcurdling certainty I had to reach the gate before it closed. My life depended on it.

  Soft, gooey dessert.

  Skeletal hands, flesh dripping off the blood-soaked bone, launched out of the dirt, grabbing my feet, tripping me up as I sprinted, while more zombies, free of their graves, breathed their foul breaths behind me, reaching out for my hair. I probed for my power, but found nothing. My power was useless in this real, but unreal place in some demon netherworld driven by my subconscious, or some such shit like that.

  I reached the gate, now halfway shut, and closing with increased speed and zeal. My shirt caught on a rusted spoke. The break in my momentum caused me to spin around and ram against the gate while it continued to close, pushing me back into the cemetery.

  I had no breath, only fear and adrenaline forcing my heart to pump. I pushed back while tugging to free my shirt. A wall of zombies approached, a mass of rotting appendages and mottled flesh, moaning my name. My heart kicked against my chest, blood roared in my ears, and with one last burst of adrenaline, I ripped my shirt free and tumbled out of the cemetery into a bright flash, landing in front of Gus.

  The demon realm.

  Gus gave me a strange look from where he stood, bent over Kara. I kneeled o
n the grassy knoll overlooking the water courtyard and sucked in a deep, trembling breath to calm my shaking body. Holy mother of all hallucinations. I opened my hands, still clenched tight around my shirt, torn and stained with a crimson spray. Real enough.

  Kara’s face was pale and moist with perspiration.

  “We need to return to the human realm. She won’t last much longer,” Gus said.

  I looked at my friend. The demon realm was taking its toll on her. I knew that soon, her internal organs would begin collapsing.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked in a weak whisper.

  “Not really. If anything, I’m more confused. I’ll tell you when we get back.”

  “I don’t think I can go through that blackness again,” she said.

  “What choice do you have? Come on.” The urgency of Kara’s situation inspired another surge of adrenaline, and I stood, steadied myself on the tree, and hoisted her up by the waist.

  “What happened to your shirt?’ she asked breathlessly.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Is it blood?” Her face blanched, and she pushed away from me, bent over, and threw up. After a few more heaves, she turned back to me. Poor thing. She looked miserable.

  “I can carry her,” Gus said. He glided down, cradled her in his arms, and flew back up to the sky. “We must hurry.” He took off, taking a route around the city, back into the forest.

  I ran to keep pace with the flying Gus. I shouldn’t have given in when Kara had pleaded to accompany me to the demon realm. I knew better. But I’d convinced myself we’d zip in and out before exposure to the demon realm could affect her or me. I was only part demon and still learning about what that meant, like how it had given my power an unholy turbo boost. But I still didn’t know how it would affect me physically.

  Well into the forest, I looked up at Gus. Kara’s head lolled to the side, her eyes closed. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s unconscious. Hurry, hurry.”

  “I get it.”

  “No, you don’t. The portal won’t remain open for long. Only powerful demons like Marchios can hold the portal open for long stretches.”

  I viewed Kara’s head flip-flopping from Gus’s urgent wing movements. “What’s with you demons and the last minute news flashes? You could have mentioned that earlier.”

  His only response was to bark another command for me to hurry. I sped up, hopping across the slick tree roots that crisscrossed the ground until I slipped and fell, stopping myself within inches of bashing my face against one of the roots.

  The black maw of the portal lay about thirty feet away. I bounded back up and ran, but didn’t seem to be covering any ground. The portal shrank and expanded, jaws gaping then snapping shut.

  A yell came from above, and Gus swooped down and dropped Kara’s body in front of me. He flew back up and clashed with another winged demon, beating the air with his sleeker, longer wings of dark green. The two engaged in aerial combat worthy of a World War II dogfight, using their wickedly jagged wing tips to buffet and cut. I watched for a moment longer, wondering who had sent the demon to attack us, when the two smashed into the thick cover of the tree tops. If the other demon killed Gus, we were screwed. I took Kara by the armpits and pulled. Her unconscious, petite frame took on an extra hundred pounds in my hands. I groaned and dragged. Black feathers dropped from above and flurried around us. Shit. I looked up at the blur of black and green wings before groaning and dragging again.

  A few more feet.

  My hands stretched painfully as I struggled to maintain my grip on Kara. My lungs burned with the exertion. I can do this. Tug, tug, tug. Desperation fired through me and propelled me within a few feet of the yawning portal.

  Suddenly, leaves scattered in a whirlwind of air, battering me with their sharp edges. The earth shook with a deafening thump, and I saw black-clawed feet blocking the portal entrance. I lifted my head. A frerac. Fuck, fuck! Nasty ghoulish, Latin spewing, bat-thing straight out of Bram Stoker’s nightmares or daydreams, depending on how you looked at it. Its tail whipped around, revealing poisonous barbs on the tip. Those same barbs had once sliced me and Ewan, almost killing us both the first time a demon creature had breached the portal, and just like that time, I was helpless. Gus continued to wrangle with the other winged demon while the frerac thumped its tail in front of me, scattering dirt and leaves.

  “Pythonis filia,” it said in a shrill whine.

  Kara grew heavier in my arms. Her lips had turned an icy blue.

  I screamed in frustration right before Myyr swooped past me in a blur of blue scales and clamped his fangs around the frerac’s wing. The frerac screeched a high-pitched foul shriek of a hundred bats that would haunt my nightmares for the next decade. The two rolled in a ball of scales and tails, away from the portal entrance. The air swooshed above me, rough hands on my back pushed me into the portal, and my mind and soul turned black.

  Chapter Four

  I LANDED ON A black floor in a windowless, doorless room. The walls were black, ceiling black, all black. Was this it? Had I survived the demon realm, escaped the record and freakish cemetery only to wind up in this room, in my own subconscious oblivion? Or was this the demon version of the Twilight Zone?

  “Ruby, you’re in the demon realm.”

  I jumped up. The surround sound voice belonged to Malthus, I was certain. But I was alone. Alone in this black room, tormented by Malthus’s voice for eternity.

  “I’m sorry you find my voice tormenting, but rest assured, you are alive,” he said.

  Great, now he could read my thoughts. I had enough shit banging around in my head, trying to drive me nuts. I didn’t need Malthus or anyone else strutting around in there too.

  “What happened? Is Kara okay?” I asked out loud to the ceiling, as if beseeching some higher deity.

  “Yes. She’s back home and recuperating,” he said, his voice echoing. “You don’t have to yell.”

  “Why can’t you talk to me in person?” I yelled on purpose.

  The wall facing me opened and folded, and the entire room rearranged itself until I was standing in what looked like a psychiatrist’s waiting room. Appropriate, I supposed. Malthus, my grandfather and demon magistrate—a title given to the more powerful and high-ranking demons—sat on a large leather chair, his coat off, sleeves rolled up his arms. He was handsome in that rugged, silver-haired way often seen in distinguished older men.

  My mind flashed to him in the record, standing over Ewan in chains. What else would this trip reveal about him? The lives of these demons could fill tomes upon tomes, none of which I had a clue about.

  I hadn’t spoken to him since the ugly scene when he told me Ewan was forbidden fruit. He’d tried to contact me a few times, pulled the I’m your grandfather card, but I’d rebuffed him. Not only was I not used to having a fatherly figure in my life, but a demon whom I tolerated through gritted teeth? A demon who’d done nothing but deceive and withhold information from me? Even using a high-powered bifocal lens, I still strained to penetrate his layers of manipulation and double talk.

  “Why am I here?”

  “You haven’t given me much of an audience lately. We need to talk.” He waved to one of the very large armchairs across from him. “Sit down.”

  I sighed and sat. He steepled his fingers, bracing his elbows on the chair, and stared at me silently in that accusatory way that was worse than screaming recrimination. I knew he was pissed I’d traveled to the demon realm without his permission. I figured I’d approach him a week or so after returning. Not necessarily enough time for him to calm down, because demons did not shake off trespasses easily, but to give myself time to prepare. Not that I could, really.

  “Go ahead, get it out of your system,” I said, then waited for the castigation.

  “Get what o
ut of my system?”

  I spit out my laugh then pinched my nose with my fingers. He wanted to play that game, force me to admit my own foolishness in coming here alone? “Fine. I came here alone against your wishes and my better judgment.”

  “Ah, yes, there is that matter, isn’t there?” He dropped the nonchalant routine and hardened his voice. “What possessed you to travel here with Gus and Kara?”

  “Demons possessed me,” I quipped, unable to resist. “Look, I made it back.”

  “Not without almost causing the death of your friend.” His brows lowered. “You could have died as well.” He paused, his jaw working, as if trying to calm down before grilling me some more. “Why did you seek to enter a record?” he asked finally.

  We stared at each other. He wanted me to admit my foolishness and submit to his authority. No way. And then realization struck. If I hadn’t been sitting, I’d have keeled over from the impact. “You instructed Tivor not to show me the record on the genocide. Why?”

  He responded without even blinking. “You must grow in your power before absorbing the knowledge such a revelation will impart.”

  “That’s the same patronizing bullshit you’ve been feeding me since my run-in with Cael, yet I made a power sphere and survived.” Once again, he was treating me like some fragile moppet needing his firm hand. Yet I bit back the retort poised on the tip of my tongue. He’d just clued me in to what I’d suspected about the genocide, that somehow it related to necromancers and how they had used their power . . . or abused their power?

  The muscles in his neck corded and I could tell he was barely keeping his frustration in check. “You barely controlled it. You almost lost yourself.”