Arianna Rose: The Gates of Hell (Part 5) (23 page)

Desmond slowed when he reached a fork in the tunnels.  “Which way?” he asked, and Dane quickly slipped his dagger to the inside of his wrist, tucking it neatly into his shirtsleeve. 

“Left,” he said, steering Desmond in the wrong direction. 

Unquestioningly, Desmond accepted Dane’s response and strode down a dusty channel Darius had never been to.  Dane pulled the knife from his sleeve and gripped it tightly.  His moment to act was upon him.  With every step he took, the blade grew heavier in his hand, and his breathing grew labored, as if he carried a dozen swords rather than a solitary blade.  Sweat beaded his brow and gathered between his shoulder blades, yet he felt cold, his toes growing numb.  His mouth went dry.  Blood pumped a fevered tempo, thundering in his ears and for a brief period, he felt certain he would faint. 

Then suddenly, all the frantic reactions storming in his body stilled.  The world around him narrowed to a pinprick smothered in absolute silence.  The air shimmered and vibrated with a killing strain; with violence and impending bloodshed so thick it was tangible. 

Dane took a deep breath and made a decision that he was sure would change his life.

“Desmond,” he said his name, and the fair-haired warlock stopped and turned to face him. 

The interim between when he’d committed to plunging his dagger deep into Desmond’s gut and when his arm actually twitched in follow-through happened in torturously slow motion.  Like an illusion or hideous dream, he watched with an indescribable, detached calm as he lunged and thrust his arm, ramming his blade just as Desmond spun to see what he was doing. 

Wide-eyed, Desmond managed a
panicked, “What are you—” before a warm gush flowed over Dane’s hand, the dagger buried to its hilt. 

Sound returned at deafening volume, the cataclysmic moment he wa
s living in screaming in an earsplitting rush. 

“Why?” Desmond asked, his voice a harsh whisper as he struggled and jerked to reach for his dagger with one hand while the other clutched the bleeding wound at his midsection. 

Dane’s eyes rested on the blood seeping through Desmond’s fingers, the gravity of what he’d just done hitting him with sledgehammer force.  “I-I did it for her,” he said, his voice tremulous.  “I’m sorry Desmond.  I’m so sorry.”  Regret filled him fully.  Disbelief at the low to which he’d sunk staggered him.  What had he done? 

The tunnel began spinning uncontrollably, bile burning up the back of his throat until it spewed from him.  With his head leaning against the cool tunnel wall, he began to weep.  “I did it for her,” he cried and pounded a fist against the stone
.  Skin ripped and knuckles split.  Droplets of his own blood fell to the ground below and mingled with Desmond’s. 

“How could this be for her?” Desmond
’s ragged, desperate voice caused him to turn slowly.  Crystal blue eyes rolled back in his head and his eyelids fluttered, his head lolling about.  He slumped to the ground.  Consciousness was escaping him as quickly as his lifeblood. 

Dane had done the unthinkable.  He’d fulfilled his end of his pact with Darius.  Wiping
his eyes with the backs of his hands then his nose with the back of his sleeve, Dane reluctantly turned from Desmond’s slumped form, distraught in a way that left every cell in his body shuddering.  He closed his burning eyes and fell to the stone floor, guilt overwhelming him. 

“Desmond, please forgive me,” he said, sobs racking his body.

Chapter 17

Worry gathered in Arianna’s mind like storm clouds.  At any given moment a tempestuous
squall of panic would rain from her, she was certain.  Why, exactly, remained the question at the forefront of her brain.  She didn’t have a clear answer.  All she knew was that something didn’t feel right.  And that a voice inside her insisted she should have gone with Dane and Desmond back to the tunnels. 

Pacing anxiously, she tucked a lock of raven hair behind her ear, and as she did, she noticed that she was not the only one feeling concern. 
Briathos stood with his arms folded across his chest, a distant, troubled look shading his features. 

“Briathos, what’s wrong?” she asked, deciding to see if their misgivings were shared.  “You’ve been unusually quiet.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said and absently waved his hand.  “Just grief muddling my thoughts I suppose.”

Briathos had lost his oldest and closest friends.  Ramiel, Leo and Sorath, all of them were gone.  He was the last of the elders to survive.  She’d been so preoccupied with all that had happened in its totality that she hadn’t taken a moment to measure the loss of each individual, perhaps because it was too painful to do so in that manner.  But she could only imagine the sorrow and
isolation he was feeling.

Shamed by her selfishness, by her inconsiderateness, Arianna cringed silently. 
“Oh Briathos, I’m so sorry,” she said and swiped her hands down her face.  “I didn’t mean to be insensitive.  I’m such a jerk,” she chastised herself.  “The losses, so many deaths have affected us.  But I’m sure losing Ramiel, Leo and Sorath has been the hardest.”

She raked a hand through the curtain of hair that veiled her face
then rubbed the bunched muscles at the back of her neck.  Desmond and Dane’s safety was a source of apprehension, and now she was confident she’d managed to insult Briathos with a potent blend of stupidity and thoughtlessness. 

“My dear Arianna, I will mourn for centuries over the lives lost in recent days,
my lifelong friends,” he said, his frost-blue eyes filled with sorrow.  “I’ve not even begun to process the gravity of it all.”  A frown creased his lips.  “And while that weighs with immeasurable heaviness on my heart, now and forever, another matter troubles me and demands my immediate attention.”  His resigned posture stiffened, his shoulders dropping and his spine lengthening.

“And what matter is that?” Arianna asked, though a part of her knew the answer before he gave it.

“Dane,” he said simply, then turned to look at her.

Arianna stopped moving. 
Eyes the color of a frozen sea held her, his one word tearing at the seams of the fabric of her being.  The longer the name remained in her brain, the clearer his message became. 

Still, she felt compelled to ask, “What about Dane?”

“Ah, but you already know.” His gaze probed, searching the very depths of her soul.  Dane had been behaving strangely; she knew it.  She’d just been too distraught, too blind to see it.  “Something in his energy felt tainted.”  A snowy brow lifted.  “Perhaps it was guilt,” Briathos allowed the word to linger between them. 

“Guilt for what?”
she was afraid to ask. 

“That, I do not know,” he admitted.

Briathos was unsure of what corrupted Dane’s energy, and Arianna was too.  But she was sure that she wasn’t going to idly sit and wait to find out. 

“I’m going after them,” she announced as soon as
a compulsion rooted deep within overtook her. 

Briathos didn’t
react as she’d expected him to.  He didn’t admonish her or tell her not to go.  He patiently said, “If Darius comes here, I won’t be able to stop him.  None of us will.  Only you can.  The portal will be opened.”

His words were grave, his warning clear. 
He and the other three men with him would die if Darius appeared while she was gone, and yet another gateway to Gehenna would be opened, setting the stage for a disadvantage of colossal proportions.  Still, Arianna couldn’t resist the pull she felt.  It was as if she were being drawn to the tunnels by forces beyond her control.

“I have to go,” she said to Briathos and he nodded as if he knew already, as if what she was feeling were as plain to him as the castle walls surrounding them. 

“Be safe.”  Briathos’ words stretched like vaporous fingers, lightly touching her cheek and wrapping her heart in an embrace of faith.

Briathos’ loyalty and support was the last sensation Arianna felt before the
castle vanished from her field of vision.  Kaleidoscopic colors rushed at her, mottled and scattered before they lengthened to blurred streamers that stretched infinitely.  She closed her eyes and focused on the tugging sensation, and the masculine scent of leather and spice—Desmond’s scent—that lingered faintly. 

When she opened her eyes, she was at the mouth of a tunnel.  Extravagant decorations and lighting caught her eye for a split-second
as she passed them.  They were a sharp contrast to the image her brain conjured when she envisioned an underground burrow. 

That image was proven correct when the ornate décor ended abruptly, effectively marking the end of the tourist portion of the experience.  Tile mosaics and hidden sconces gave way to pebbly terrain underfoot and rough walls.  The air became soiled by dus
t particles.  The ceiling slanted lower.  And a rising sensing of dread struck.

Dark fear, sick and twisting, surrounded her, filling her nostrils and
wrenching her gut.  Her eyesight, though superior, struggled against the thick blanket of darkness.  She hurried her pace to a jog, images of Desmond flashing before her eyes and jarring any calm or confidence she felt.  In her visions, a pale mist of brilliant blue was trickling from his fallen body; his life force seeping. 

“No,” she murmured aloud involuntarily.  Desmond couldn’t be slipping away.  He was too important to the wor
ld; to her.  She couldn’t let him die.

Pumping her arms and pushing her legs to their limits, she gained ground faster than she ever dreamed possible, terror an apt motivator. 
Her heart was in her throat and fire scorched her lungs as she ran blindly through the dark and winding tunnels, following the magnetic pull that drew her to Desmond’s waning energy.

A sudden
split appeared before her.  The tunnel separated into two arteries.  She slowed considerably, her feet sliding to a near stop.  Uncertain of which path to choose, she allowed the lure of Desmond’s faltering light to guide her.  She turned left and sprinted.

She hadn’t been running for long when a
darting shadow, oily and blacker than the stifling dark of the passage, caught her attention up ahead.  A muffled voice whispered; the cryptic words inaudible as the sound traveled along the curves of the tunnels and raised the hairs at her nape.  Knowing it could be anyone or anything, that it was likely a demon sent to rip her limb from limb, she still hastened her pace further and rushed headlong toward it. 

Desmond was there,
she was certain, and his essence was slipping.  She needed to get to him, to save him.  She would face whatever awaited her.

When she arrived and saw the source of the shadow, that it was Dane hovering over
a slumped form, confusion knocked the wind from her lungs.  She gasped, halting.  Sweat poured freely down her forehead.  Panting, she mopped it with the sleeve of her shirt as she listened to what Dane was saying.

“I’m sorry, Desmond.  I’m so sorry.  Please forgive me,”
Dane keened, his head bowed and his body scurrying frantically around Desmond.

She heard Dane speaking to Desmond, but didn’t see Desmond yet.  She felt the weakening pulse of his energy, but
had yet to lay eyes on him.

The situation didn’t add up.   It
didn’t make sense.  Why was Dane apologizing?  Arianna’s mind spun like wheels in mud, desperately seeking traction. 

“What happened?” she asked
and advanced a step.

Skittish and animated like a frightened colt, Dane lurched
, as if dodging a blow launched at his head.

“Dan
e,” she said his name, the word fisting her heart. 

“I shouldn’t have,” he started with his hand
s gripping his head.  He grabbed fistfuls of his short hair and twisted. 

Arianna took another step toward him, and he dropped to a squatting position for a second then sprang to standing.  Despite the erratic movements, however, her gaze vacillated from Dane to the small puddle of garnet near her feet. 

“What’ve you done, Dane?” her voice was as raw as her emotions, the situation suddenly honed to a machete-sharp point. 

Desmond was on the ground, an expanding pool of blood surrounding him. 
Neither her heart nor her mind could reconcile the image before her.  “NO! What have you done?” she screamed again. 

Dane
twisted away from her, yanking tufts of hair again.  He spun without warning.  His eyes were red and swollen, but wild as they flitted about the space.  “I-I-I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to,” he stammered. 

A tumultuous surge of power rocketed
from her core.  It spit from her like electricity, raining like embers, a dangerous energy that filled the space between them as she dropped to her knees and cradled Desmond’s head in her lap.

“What are you sorry for, Dane?” she asked, unable to tear her gaze from Desmond, whose eyes were glazed and unfocused.  A great tempest of rage strengthened with every second Dane stammered and didn’t answer.  “Did you do this?” She pointed to Desmond.  “Did you do this to him?”

Tense seconds ticked by.

“I did it for you.” 
Dane’s voice was hollow and gravelly when finally he answered.