Soul Bound (41 page)

“I don’t give a rat’s ass. Lia lives, or I’m out of this.”

“You’ve already taken the blood vow,” Regan reminded him.

Anger spiked in his blood. “You knew about this?” His mother’s guilt-stricken gaze was a dead giveaway. “You lied to me.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t lie.”

“I asked you if Lia would come out of this alive, and you said you didn’t know.”

“I don’t,” she insisted. “None of us do. We can’t predict the future.”

“In that case, I say to hell with your stupid prophecy. The future is anything we make it. Lia lives,” he repeated. “End of story.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

While the world slept, Jace and the others stole into the night, with him in the lead. The earth glistened beneath a thin carpet of dew silvered by moonlight as they weaved their way through a bramble of Douglas firs, cedars and tall pines. Needles scraped their flesh, scratched at their cheeks, but failed to cause any damage. At their feet, snarls of grass gathered to hinder their passage.

“Where are you taking us?” Marcus asked. “There’s nothing out here but trees.”

Jace didn’t answer—couldn’t have even if he’d wanted to—guided not by thought but by compulsion. The same compulsion that had driven him to Cascade Head when Cal and Marcus had taken Lia hostage. Some elemental instinct told him that Lia was out here somewhere, hidden by a shield of wilderness.

They trekked through the valley of several high mountains, passed narrow canyons and cascading streams that boasted clear, rushing waters. In the distance something rustled, and an elk sprinted from a copse of hemlocks.

“He hasn’t got a clue where he’s going,” one Watcher whispered to another.

“A wild goose chase,” his buddy corroborated.

Jace ignored them. Lia’s presence continued to draw him forward. She was close, a glimmer of light surrounded by shadows. He had to find that light, to safeguard it, regardless of what some ancient prophecy predicted. Nothing on earth would compel him to steal Lia’s soul. Nothing. He drew comfort from that thought. Comfort and strength.

The very impulse that had propelled him earlier now brought him to a sudden halt. He fell to his knees and spread his palms over the damp earth. “It’s here,” he told the others as they gathered around him. “I feel it. Feel
her.
”

“There’s nothing down there but dirt,” Marcus challenged.

Cal crouched beside him and examined the soil. “He’s right. There was an entrance here. Probably the one Kyros used to return to the catacombs and warn Athanatos about our impending attack.”

“Son of a bitch.” Marcus shook his head. “An entrance, right in our backyard. If that’s not a slap in the face, I don’t know what is.”

“If there was an entrance here,” Regan tossed in, “it’s obviously been sealed.”

Jace refused to accept defeat. “Can’t we open it?”

Cal turned his gaze toward the heavens in silent contemplation. “I wish we could. But no Hybrid is strong enough to undo what Athanatos has erected. And sadly, my powers aren’t what they used to be.”

From within the earth, Lia’s essence continued to hum. “No. There’s gotta be a way. Lia’s down there. I know she is.”

“We need to keep looking,” Regan said.

Jace’s shoulders stiffened as he gripped a handful of soil. “There’s no time.”

He rubbed the dirt between his fingers, felt its rough, clammy texture, squeezed it in his palm until his skin prickled. When next he unclenched his fingers, he didn’t see dirt but a mass of vibrating molecules. In that instant, he understood what his mother had been trying to teach him. Matter was nothing but a symphony of strings moving at different frequencies, splitting and rejoining, each physical object producing its own unique melody. If there was something Jace understood, it was music. By focusing his thoughts, he manipulated the electrons and protons in his palm until they split apart. The dirt rolled off his fingers as if carried by a swift breeze.

“I see how things are,” he whispered. “I know how he does it.”

Kneeling in the moonlight, his arms spread wide, Jace willed the earth to part. The ground rumbled in protest, trembled and moaned, then slowly began to move. Before long, a wide canyon loomed at their feet. Muddy, silt-encrusted walls plunged toward the heart of the earth, from which steady puffs of steam rose to dissipate in the air.

The silence grew so thick, it smothered the night. No Watcher dared speak, each wearing an expression of stunned reverence.

Finally two words pierced the deafening hush. “Holy shit.” It was Regan who’d spoken them. Then a cacophony of voices rose in unison to bombard him.

Jace ignored the shocked murmurs of those crowded around him. Overhead, a horned owl soared with outstretched wings, its flight desperate and furious. It let out a mournful cry as it fled.

Guided by faith alone, Jace stretched out his arms like the bird’s wings and leapt into the dark, vaporous abyss.

He fell and fell, whizzed past rough, clay walls to swim in a sea of mist. A strong, sulfurous smell assaulted him, convinced him he’d just bought himself a one-way ticket to the underworld.

Jace hit the ground, landing in a crouch. Vaulting to his feet, he checked the scabbard attached to his belt. The sleek, gleaming sword Cal had given him before they’d taken off still hung securely in place, coated in angel’s blood and ready for the kill. Humidity dampened the air, permeated his clothing and sent a chill traveling along his spine. Vapor trickled from his mouth with each breath he exhaled.

Disoriented, he aimed a glance above. Had the others abandoned him? If they had, he’d still see this through. He wouldn’t leave this hellhole without Lia. He couldn’t.

A thud punctuated the stillness, then another and another. One by one, the Watchers landed and came to stand vigil beside him.

Regan scanned her surroundings. “What is this place?”

“Some kind of trench.” Marcus’s hand rose instinctively to rest on the hilt of his sword. “Question is, where does it lead?”

Cal walked ahead of them, his gaze trained on the shadows teeming in the distance. “I think we all know the answer to that.”

Lia couldn’t tell if it was night or day. The hours blended seamlessly, one trickling into the next, like the steady flow of water. She’d slept for a while, exhausted by her tussle with Athanatos, weighed down by heavy thoughts she was unable to shake.

She couldn’t let this creature steal her light; she knew that. To do so would be to allow the Ancient to win and destroy Jace, a man she loved beyond guilt or grief or reason, even now when her soul was in tatters. The more the two distinct segments of her spirit fought to break apart, the more that love struggled to hold them together. She couldn’t bear to lose him, too. Jace was all she had left in the world worth fighting for.

As though he’d sensed her strength returning, Athanatos swept back into the opulent chamber, his long black cape billowing behind him. Lia’s heart thumped out of control.

A humorless smile curled his full lips. “Did you enjoy your nap?”

“Go to hell.”

“Look around you.” He gestured to the dank, stone walls hemming them in. “I’m already there. Hell isn’t fire and brimstone. It’s emptiness and obscurity. It’s living in another’s shadow for all of eternity. It’s having to rely on creatures you loathe for sustenance. Hell is being granted unlimited power you can barely use.”

And she’d believed Jace had issues. “How is screwing with my mind going to change any of that?”

“It won’t. But it may just remove a threat that has been hanging over my head for nearly two centuries.”

Lia pulled at her bonds, but they remained stone-hard and unyielding. “Could you at least remove the stone shackles? They’re cutting off my circulation.”

He waved his hand and the bindings crumbled to dust. Relieved, she rubbed her bruised wrists.

“Never say I wasn’t a gracious host.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

If Athanatos caught the sarcastic timbre in her voice, he didn’t let on. Instead, he palmed her head and pinned her to the headboard. She struggled, tried to claw his fingers off her, but she was no match for him. His strength exceeded even Jace’s. In a matter of seconds, he crawled inside her psyche.

Lia moaned as a crippling wave of images flared to life within her again.

Jace had no idea how long they’d been walking, when the trench morphed to tunnels that forked out in all directions. Following Lia’s silent call, he picked the one on the far left.

“Is this what I think it is?” Regan took in the stone walls surrounding them.

“The catacombs,” Cal answered in a deferential tone. “Jace’s instincts were correct.”

“How can we be sure we’re going the right way?” Marcus remained skeptical.

The pressure around Jace’s wrists and ankles suddenly abated. Before he could make sense of it, he doubled over, vicious snapshots of his past scrolling through his mind.

He gripped his head. Fell to his knees. Every vile thought he’d ever had, every unfeeling act he’d committed in his worthless existence played out like a movie in his brain, including his slow, skillful seduction of Cassie. But worse yet was the graphic depiction of his unfaithfulness and cold, calculated betrayal.

Then, as though someone had pressed
fast forward
, the slideshow sped up until Jace was thrust back into the whispering woods, kneeling in front of Cal, taking the blood vow.

Lia struggled to break free of Athanatos’s hold, to keep him from showing her these vicious images that tore painful strips out of her soul. But his grip was firm, and her strength was quickly waning. She didn’t even have the energy to beg him to stop.

She tried to block the pictures exploding in her head, to fortify her heart so that it wouldn’t shatter beneath the assault. She couldn’t allow Athanatos to shake her faith in Jace. Her love for him was the only thing holding her together. The person he was, the things he’d done were gone and buried. It was what he did from now on that mattered.

The scene suddenly morphed. In her mind’s eye, she saw Jace kneeling across from Cal, his arm resting on a stone altar. Lia heard the words they spoke, grasped their meaning, and her very spirit shriveled.

“Do you swear your allegiance to me and no other?”

“Yes.”

“Do you agree to live a life of celibacy devoted solely to the Watchers’ cause?”

“Yes.”

“Do you swear to live by my rule, follow my orders without question, even forfeit your life if necessary?”

“Yes.”

He’d done it. Jace had taken the blood vow.

“He’s joined them.” Athanatos echoed her thoughts. “He’s abandoned you.”

“No.” Just when Lia believed she couldn’t hurt any more, pain ripped through her.

“He’ll have no choice but to obey Cal now, and Cal demands complete devotion. There’s no room in his life for you anymore.”

“Stop it! Just stop it.” But even as she rejected Athanatos’s claim, a part of her heard a seed of truth within it. That seed took root inside her, expanded until it crushed her hope.

Why, Jace? Why did you turn your back on us?

Any chance of building a life with the man she loved vanished in a puff of smoke. It was over, the future she’d envisioned gone.
Like Cassie
. She had no one now.

Despair snowballed in her chest, a black hole siphoning away her strength, her sense of purpose, her very will to survive.

Sensing her defeat, Athanatos gripped her chin and inclined her head. “Finally. You’re mine.”

When Jace opened his eyes, he lay on the damp, mud-caked ground, staring up at a dozen or so Watchers, who studied him warily. “What happened?” he asked.

“You just had some kind of seizure.” Regan grabbed hold of his hand to help him to his feet.

The mother of all headaches pounded behind his temples. “No, not a seizure. A trip down memory lane.” He ran rough fingers over his face. “I know this is going to sound really corny, but I just saw my whole life flash before my eyes.”

A shadow fell to darken Cal’s pale features. “Athanatos,” he muttered, more to himself than to the others. “He’s figured it out. He’s trying to sever the link. To break Lia in half.” He captured Jace’s gaze, held it. “It’s the only way he can destroy you.”

Jace’s stomach sank. “Then we’ve gotta get a move on, speed things up. We can’t let him succeed.”

“No,” Cal agreed, “we can’t.”

They hastened down the gloomy passageway until they reached another fork in the road. Jace stilled, hesitated.

“What’s wrong?” Cal asked.

“I’ve lost the connection. I can’t sense her.” His fingers stroked the locket.

“Come on, Lia, speak to me.”

But the gold remained cold, void of the energy that had been guiding him. “Why can’t I sense her?”

Cal’s grim expression said it all.

“No.” Jace refused to believe it was too late. If Lia no longer existed, he’d know. The part of him that had come alive in her arms would curl up and die. “He hasn’t broken her. Lia is too strong. She’ll fight him until we get there.”

“That’s a fine thought, but how will we get there without you to guide us?” Marcus argued.

“You can take over,” Cal told him. “You’re the best tracker we have.”

“My power doesn’t work down here. There’s too much dark energy, too many conflicting signatures.”

“Try,” Cal urged.

With an uncertain nod, Marcus placed his hand on Jace’s shoulder. “Your signature is practically identical to Lia’s. If I focus on it, I may be able to block out all the interference and get a lock on her.”

Jace’s impatience grew as Marcus stood there meditating, or whatever the hell it was he was doing. Still, if it helped them find Lia, he was all for it.

Marcus finally opened his eyes. “I can’t get an exact fix on her location, but my gut tells me to go this way.” He pointed to the right. “I sense darkness in its most concentrated form.”

“Athanatos,” Cal guessed. “If we find him, we find Lia.” He instantly headed down the path Marcus had indicated, and the others quickly followed.