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Chapter 30

Anaya

Ash rained down from the sky and the heat of the underworld swallowed me. Easton stepped up beside me and looked out over the barren wasteland to the skull-lined cliffs.

“How are we supposed to get him out of there?” I asked, watching shadows scream and dive from the cliffs.

Easton narrowed his gaze as if trying to find a way in. “I don’t know. But we better come up with something soon. He’s not going to last long down here.”

The memory flooded over me in an instant. The pain. The moment when I realized Tarik was never coming back. I couldn’t go through that again. There would be no escape from it this time. No blade to take me away. He’d be gone. And I would have to live with the absence of him…forever.

I forced the panic exploding to life in my chest down until it was just a faint throbbing in my gut.

We would get him out. We had to. I hadn’t found him after a thousand years only to lose him now. Not like this.

Easton nudged my arm and walked out ahead of me, his boots crunching in the rocks and ash. “Let’s go.”

I hurried after him, one hand on my scythe. I didn’t know how much it was going to help me against a horde of shadow demons, but I held on to it anyway. Ready to destroy anything that got in my way.

When we were close enough to the cliffs to see the flaming shadows leaping up from the waves, Easton grabbed me and pulled us behind a skull. My shins hit the thick ice base and I winced. It… burned. I stared down at the red slashes marring my skin.

“You okay?”

I looked up at Easton, trying to conceal my horror. I could feel pain in this place. It stung and throbbed and reminded me of the end of a life I didn’t want to remember. The memory of the blade slipping between my ribs almost caused me to cry out, but I held it in. They could end me here, just as easily as I’d ended myself. “I…yes. I’m fine. How do we know where to find him?” I placed my hand on the stone to brace myself and looked down the coast at the endless row of skull caverns. “He could be anywhere. Where do we even start?”

Easton stared into the flaming horizon where Hell beckoned him. He was ignoring a call. I could see the pain written all over his face. The scythe smoking at his side. Here, where we became flesh and blood, it had to be burning him right through to his skin.

“Easton?”

“We need a diversion,” he finally said, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist.

“There’s no way we’re going to get inside to search. And even if we do…we won’t make it out. We need something to draw them out. We need to empty those caves.”

A shadow slithered around the side of the cavern as if drawn by our scent and we froze. My fingers curled around the pearl handle of my scythe and Easton placed his hand over mine to stop me.

“You’ll attract more of them,” he whispered. The shadow swooped down until it hovered right in front of my face, hissing, wanting a taste. I inhaled and the black scent of death swirled down into my lungs. It burned like fire and my eyes watered. Even when my body had been living, I’d never felt anything like this. Everything inside me screamed for self-preservation. Telling me to run away and never look back. But I couldn’t give in to that fear. There was too much on the line. Easton squeezed my hand and I shut my eyes. I couldn’t look at it, this thing that had Cash. I wanted to destroy it. After an excruciating moment, an awful shrieking sound escaped the shadow’s throat and it whipped around the skull and dove into the frothy gray sea. I sagged against the skull and Easton blew a long breath out, releasing my hand.

“Is he worth this, Anaya?” Easton stood up. “If he is, we’ll do this. But we are about to reach the point of no return. In fact, I can’t promise you any of us will make it out of this. So I’m going to ask you this once, do you love him? Do you love him enough to face the possibility of this being your end?”

Easton stood in front of me, waiting. He’d jump in feet-first whatever I decided. I knew that. I knew it because whether he wanted anyone to know it or not, Easton had a heart. So did I. And it belonged to

Cash. “I love him. I won’t leave him here. But you should go. I don’t expect you to risk yourself for this.”

Easton stepped back and rolled his eyes. “I don’t bow out from a fight. You should know that about me by now.”

“What I know is that you don’t give a damn about some human. No matter who they are. No matter what’s on the line.”

“You’re on the line here, Anaya!” He glared at me. “Don’t you get that? Don’t you get how valuable this kid is? How badly Balthazar wants him?” he said. “If we don’t bring him back from this… you will play Balthazar’s price.”

“And you are willing to risk yourself for that? For him?” I asked, my voice shaky.

He sighed and scrubbed his fingers through his black hair. “You. I’m willing to risk myself for you.

Don’t get some preconceived notion that I give a damn about the human. I don’t.”

Despite the heat and the pain and the danger of the place around me, I smiled.

“But you give a damn about me.”

Easton caught sight of the look on my face and groaned. “Don’t you dare tell anyone I said that. I’ll leave your pretty little ass down here if you do.”

“You’re a good friend, Easton,” I said. “Thank you.”

Easton ignored me and bounced on the balls of his feet as if he were pumping himself up for what came next. “I hope you’re ready to do this.” His violet eyes narrowed on the cliffs, determined.

“What are we doing?” I said, panicked. “We…we don’t even have a plan.”

“Yeah we do. The distraction thing.”

“That’s not a plan, Easton! That’s an idea. A suggestion.”

Easton ignored me. “Whatever happens, just make sure you get in and out of those caverns before they come back,” he said. “I’ll do my best to keep them out, but I won’t be able to hold them off for long.”

I reached out for Easton, but he slipped through my fingers. “Wait! You never said you were the distraction.”

Easton spun around and a lopsided grin lit up his face. “Worried about me, Anaya? You should know better than that.”

He turned and ran, his duster flying out behind him like a wave of smoke. “Dinnertime, you little bastards!” He disappeared into an ash cloud and a few black blurs zipped after him. On the other side of the cliffs the shadows screamed with need.

“Anaya, run!” His voice echoed from somewhere I couldn’t see.

My legs jumped into action at the sound of his voice, and my breath sawed in and out of my lungs, burning my throat. Fear pounded in my chest like a drum. I ran, watching the black shadows pour out of the eyes and nostrils of the skull cavern closest to me. It looked like a continuous gush of oil, spilling out onto the land before it separated into a thousand black pulsing forms. I paused only long enough to wait for the stragglers to make it out, then wrapped my fingers around the mouth of the skull and pulled myself into the darkness.

Once I was inside, I pressed my back against the warm, wet wall and swiped at the tears running down my cheeks. I hadn’t been able to cry in a thousand years. And I didn’t like the fact that I could now. Easton was out there. For me. How could I let him do that? How was he supposed to make it out?

I shook the thoughts out of my head and stepped away from the wall. I couldn’t worry about that now. If I didn’t find Cash, Easton was risking everything for nothing. The thousand years that had led us to this moment would be for nothing.

“Cash!” I slipped in something thick and wet and caught myself on the wall. In the dim blue light, blood dripped down from the ceiling like rain. I pushed my wet braids out of my face and unsheathed my scythe, moving forward. Only forward. Never looking back.

“Please be here,” I whispered into the darkness. “Please be alive.”

The cave finally opened up into a wide room. Stones like fangs lined the walls. The sounds of my breaths echoed in the hollow place. He’d been here. I could feel the memory of him, the essence of him. “Cash.”

Something splashed behind me and I spun around shaking. I refused to let fear overwhelm me. I didn’t have time for that. When I couldn’t find the source of the sound, I walked the perimeter of the room, keeping my wrist over my nose to block the smell. I was halfway around when I saw it. Silver ropes that looked as if they were made of some type of flexible metal lay unraveled on the ground next to a stone. And beside them, Cash’s bracelet. The little scrap of hemp and beads he never took off, even to shower, lay saturated in a puddle of blood. A whimper escaped my throat and I stumbled back into a set of hands so hot they scalded my skin. Fear surged through me and I raised my scythe, turning around.

Easton grabbed hold of my arm and frowned. “Slow down, princess. It’s just me.”

His black hair was plastered to his scalp with sweat, and somewhere along the way he’d shed his long black coat, leaving him in a plain black T-shirt. Pale white scars looked like spiderwebs crawling down his biceps out from under the sleeves of his shirt. I was a little shocked. Most of us chose to shed the scars of our life, symbols of our death. Yet Easton had kept his.

“Are you okay?” I finally managed to ask.

He nodded. “Yeah, but we need to go.”

Trembling, I spun around and snatched Cash’s bracelet up from the ground and slid it onto my wrist.

“He was here,” I said.

Easton’s jaw clenched as he looked down at the bracelet. “And now he’s out there.”

“What?” My freshly beating heart nearly stopped. “Is he alive?”

Easton grabbed my hand and started tugging me out of the cave. “Not for long. It’s feeding time out there.”