Spell Bound (24 page)

It was the same reason I hadn’t gone into the hut to find Mom, and why I’d skirted around Archer’s tent. I’d been nearly to the shore when I’d heard him softly call, “Mercer.”

Kneeling in the doorway of his tent, his hair a mess, his Hex Hall uniform ridiculously wrinkled, he’d nearly broken my heart. And when I ran to him as soundlessly as I could and practically dove on top of him, I’d told myself that our kiss was just your normal boyfriend/ girlfriend saying good morning thing. Even when he pulled me inside, the tent warm and cozy and smelling like him, I hadn’t let myself think that might be the last time I’d see him.

And when he’d pulled me closer and murmured, “Mercer, I love—” I had covered his mouth with my hand.

“Don’t say that. Not now. Say it sometime when there is absolutely no chance of death on the horizon, okay?”

He mumbled something beneath my palm, and I rolled my eyes as I pulled it away from his mouth. He dropped a kiss on the tip of my nose. “All I was going to say was that I love this tent you made for me. But I guess I can tell you again later. When you get back.”

Curling my hand around the back of his neck, I’d pulled him down to me. “You better.”

A blush creeping up my neck from the memory, I swung my gaze away from his tent and back toward the lake. I was coming back. I was going to be fine, and getting down into the Underworld to collect demonglass wouldn’t be hard at all. Maybe I’d make it back before lunch.

Of course, I couldn’t make it back if I never left.

And just like that, the simplest way to get across the lake occurred to me.

Standing up, I pointed a finger at the water. The surface of the lake began to ripple, and then, with a great whooshing sound, the water in front of us slid back, leaving a narrow, silver muddy trail along the lake’s bottom. The path wove all the way to the base of the rocky island.

“What it lacks in pizzazz, it makes up for in practicality,” I said, hoping Aislinn couldn’t hear how terrified I was. But she put her hand on my shoulder—the first time she’d ever touched me—and said, “You’ll be fine. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you, Sophie Brannick, it’s that you are one tough little thing.”

I almost said, “Sophie Mercer.” Instead I just said, “Thanks, um, Aunt Aislinn.”

She pulled her hand back. “Let’s not get carried away.”

“Right, sorry.”

I turned back to the watery path and tried to remind myself that I had done all kinds of terrifying things. Escaped a burning building. Faced off against a werewolf. Fought creepy demon mind control. Walking through some water shouldn’t be that scary. Still, my feet refused to move.

“You ready to go?” a voice said from behind me.

Cal.

He stood just at the edge of the water, hands in his pockets.

I stared at him in confusion. “You can’t.”

“I can’t go into the Underworld with you, but there’s nothing in the rule against having an escort out there.”

Aislinn looked back and forth between us, finally saying, “You can try it.”

Experimentally, Cal put one foot on the path. I tensed, waiting for the water to rush back in over him. When it didn’t, I let out the breath I’d been holding.

“Seems safe enough,” Cal said, and Aislinn shrugged.

“Well, there you go,” she said.

Without so much as a “Hey, try not to get killed,” she turned back for the stone hut. I wouldn’t let my eyes follow Aislinn. If I looked back, I was afraid I’d go running after her.

Instead I walked out to stand next to Cal. Underfoot, the surface gave slightly. Gingerly, we made our way down the watery road. “Brannicks and magic and hell, oh my,” I joked, and Cal gave a snort of what might have been laughter.

I hit a particularly slippery spot and wobbled for a second before Cal grabbed my elbow. I didn’t want it to be awkward, and I really didn’t want my entire face to go red, but that’s exactly what happened. I glanced up. Our eyes met, and Cal jerked back his hand so fast that he overbalanced. As he started to fall, I went to grab him, and the next thing I knew, we both went down. I hit the wall of water to my right, just as Cal slid to the left. I fell into the water, completely immersed, only to have it spit me back out onto the path.

I sat there, arms and legs akimbo, hair dripping water into my eyes. Cal sat opposite me, every bit as drenched, looking totally bewildered. Once again, we locked eyes.

And this time, we both burst out laughing.

“Oh God,” I spluttered. “Your face!”

“My face?” he said, his laughter dwindling to a chuckle. “You should see your hair.”

He rose to his feet, leaning down to offer me a hand. I took it gratefully. Once I was upright again, I ran my hand in front of my body, magic fluttering out of my fingertips to dry my hair and clothes. Cal did the same to himself, and then we studied each other.

“All right, now that the weirdness between us has caused actual physical damage, I think it’s time we talked it out, don’t you?”

He gave a half smile and then turned back to the path. “We don’t need to be weird,” he said. “These past few days, since the thing with Elodie, I’ve been thinking.” He took a deep breath, and I knew that this was one of those rare occasions when Cal was about to say a lot of words at once. “I like you, Sophie. A lot. For a while, I thought it might be more than that. But you love Cross.”

He said it matter-of-factly, but I still caught the way his ears reddened. “I know I’ve said some pretty awful stuff about him, but…I was wrong. He’s a good guy. So, I guess what I’m saying is that as the guy who’s betrothed to you, I wish we could be more than friends.” He stopped, turning around to face me. “But as your friend, I want you to be happy. And if Cross is who you want, then I’m not gonna stand in the way of that.”

“I’m the worst fiancée ever, aren’t I?”

Cal lifted one shoulder. “Nah. This one warlock I knew, his betrothed set him on fire.”

Laughing so I wouldn’t cry, I tentatively lifted my arms to hug him. He folded me against his chest, and there was no awkwardness between us, and I knew the warmth in the pit of my stomach
was
love. Just a different kind.

Sniffling, I pulled back and rubbed at my nose. “Okay, now that the hard part’s over, let’s go tackle the Underworld.”

“Got room for two more?”

Startled, I turned to see Jenna and Archer standing on the path, Jenna’s hand clutching Archer’s sleeve as she tried to stay on her feet. “What?” was all I could say.

Archer took a few careful steps forward. “Hey, this has been a group effort so far. No reason to stop now.”

“You guys can’t go into the Underworld with me,” I told them. “You heard Dad, I’m the only one with—”

“With powers strong enough. Yeah, we got that,” Jenna said. “But how are you supposed to carry a whole bunch of demonglass out of that place? It’ll burn you. And hey, maybe your powers will be strong enough to get all of us in, too.” She gestured to herself and the boys. “Plus it’s not like we don’t have powers of our own.”

I knew I should tell them to go back. But having the three of them there made me feel a whole lot better and whole lot less terrified. So in the end, I gave an exaggerated sigh and said, “Okay, fine. But just so you know, following me into hell means you’re all
definitely
the sidekicks.”

“Darn, I was hoping to be the rakishly charming love interest,” Archer said, taking my hand.

“Cal, any role you were after?” I asked him, and he looked ruefully at the craggy rock looming over us. As he did, there was the grinding sound of stone against stone. We all stared at the opening that appeared.

“I’m just hoping to be the Not Dead Guy,” Cal muttered.

We faced the entrance. “Between the four of us, we fought ghouls, survived attacks by demons and L’Occhio di Dio, and practically raised the dead,” I said. “We can do this.”

“See, inspiring speeches like that are why you get to be the leader,” Archer said, and he squeezed my hand.

And then, moving almost as one, we stepped into the rock.

A
s soon as we were in, the opening closed behind us. “Of course,” I heard Archer say under his breath. I lifted my fingers, and an orb of light sprang from them. Not that it was particularly helpful. All I saw was a bunch of dark, slick granite, and not much else.

“So…is this it?” Jenna asked. “Are we in the Underworld? Because to be honest, I thought it would be hotter.”

I looked around in the gloom. “I…don’t know,” I finally said. “Anyone see a sign that says, Underworld This Way? Preferably with an arrow?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Archer said. “But something feels weird. Is it just me?”

Now that he mentioned it, I could feel something, too. It was like the cavern held a subtle charge. When I looked down, I saw that the hairs on my arms were all standing up. Inside me, my magic churned and thumped. “No, I definitely think we’re in the right place. Which means I should probably do this.” Facing the three of them, I concentrated as hard as I could.
Be safe
, was all I could think of as far as protection spells went, but I felt power surge up and then flow gently from my hands. The spell was a milky white, and it curled around Archer, Jenna, and Cal like smoke, before settling in.

“Okay, do you guys feel protected?”

“I do,” Archer said. “Also, a little violated, but that’s neither here nor there.”

I rolled my eyes. “You two?”

“Yeah,” Cal said. “Whatever you did, I think it worked.”

“Same,” Jenna added.

“Awesome.” I started walking forward, the others following. “Archer, any helpful factoids about demon-glass you’d like to offer up?”

“Um, okay. Well, after the war in heaven, the angels who fought on the wrong side were stripped down to just their most basic level.”

“Right,” I nodded. “Dad told me that. Demons are just pure dark magic, nothing more. Until they’re put in a body, obviously.”

“I don’t know, there are times when you seem like you’re just pure dark—ow.” Archer broke off as I poked him in the ribs. “Anyway, the demons were forced into another dimension. What people call hell, or the Underworld, or whatever. Supposedly—and for us, hopefully—that’s where you find demonglass. Which, really, is nothing more than rock that’s been permeated with all that dark magic. Demon Kryptonite, basically.”

“So we’re going into another dimension?” Jenna asked, her voice wavering a little. “Like what the Itineris does?”

“That’s the idea,” Archer replied.

Seeing as how the Itineris almost always left Jenna trying not to cough out her inner organs, I understood why she sounded a little freaked out.

“This doesn’t feel like another dimension, though,” I said. “It just feels like—”

“A cave,” Cal said.

“Yeah, a cave.” As soon as I said that, my heart started to pound. Ugh, this new claustrophobia thing was
highly
annoying. “Other than the weird feeling in the air, which honestly, could be something natural, I’m not sensing anything that makes me think we’re in the
actual
Underworld.”

No sooner were the words out of my mouth then the orb I was carrying whooshed out. Next to me, Jenna gasped, and I did everything possible to summon the light back. When I could suddenly see everyone again, I thought maybe I’d managed it. But then I realized the light in the cavern wasn’t the soft blue I’d made. It was a harsh orange-yellow, almost like a streetlamp.

I blinked. It
was
a streetlamp. And I wasn’t in a cave anymore. I was in a room. A motel room, if the cheap carpet and identical double beds were anything to go by. There were two figures in one of the beds, and from the soft, even sound of their breathing, I knew they were sleeping.

“What the hell is going on?” Archer asked, just as a low moan filled my ears. It was Jenna. She stood beside me, her eyes huge, hands pressed to her mouth.

I grabbed her arm. “What is it?” I asked. “Jenna—”

The cracking sound of wood breaking exploded through the room, and three men, all in black, rushed inside. One of them brushed against me, feeling every bit as real and solid as Cal on my other side.

The figures in the bed sat up, shrieking, and as they did, I saw the light fall on a familiar pink stripe. I watched Jenna leap out of the bed, fangs bared, as the men in black—members of L’Occhio di Dio—raised wooden stakes over their heads. There was an awful sucking sound as one of the stakes found its mark.

Amanda, Jenna’s first girlfriend. The girl who had made her a vampire.

Both the Jenna in the motel room and the Jenna next to me screamed. And then, just as abruptly, everything went dark again. The only sound was our ragged breathing and Jenna’s shuddery weeping.

“It’s okay,” I murmured, wrapping my arms around her. “It wasn’t real.”

“But it was,” she cried. “Th—that’s exactly how it happened.”

There was nothing I could say to that. I felt someone move closer to us, and then Archer’s voice, very low, said, “Jenna, I’m so sorry.”

Her only reply was another wrenching sob.

“Okay,” Cal said. “Let’s just keep moving.”

At least there was no doubt that we were in hell now. I’d been prepared for fire and brimstone and all of that. But walking into a place that made you relive nightmarish moments from your own past? Swallowing, I held Jenna tighter, relit the orb, and we moved on.