Scorched

Chapter 25

Alessandro’s group had been the first to move into the Castle. There had been half a dozen guardsmen stand-ing watch inside the door. There were now six guardsmen tied up and in the custody of the bears.

Just before they moved off, he stopped and folded Holly in his arms.

“Be careful,” she said.

He held her away, his arms on her shoulders. She was giving him the full force of her lovely green eyes.

“You be careful,” he said. Suddenly everything seemed too fragile. He wanted to take everything back and start the night over. A night where there was no Castle, and Holly wouldn’t be left behind to battle stray monsters. Maybe they’d have watched a movie.

“Alessandro,” she said on an indrawn breath.

“Yes?”

She exhaled, her look confused. He waited.

“I’m the one with the magic,” she said. “Don’t take big risks. Don’t make me come looking for you.”

He could tell she meant it, but that hadn’t been what she’d meant to say. They exchanged a look. Her eyes were full of nothing but love, and a trace of fear, and a lot of courage.

“I’ll tell you the rest later,” she said. He kissed her again, lightly this time, or he’d never tear himself away. “Take my gun.”

“I don’t need it.”

Yes, she had magic, but he’d made her learn to fire a weapon. He liked insurance.

“Take it, anyway. It’ll make me feel better. I’m better with a sword.”

Because if she wasn’t waiting, what was the point of coming back?

Constance remembered Bran’s orders as the guardsmen had captured Sylvius. Keep him separate from the others, especially the sorcerer. Put Atreus in the comer cell. Keep this one downstairs.

How could the guardsmen keep control of Atreus? His powers were growing weak, but he could still protect himself. She hadn’t had time to think about it before, but now it preyed on her mind. She couldn’t think of an answer, and that meant there was a surprise in store.

Not the pleasant kind of surprise, either.

They gambled that Sylvius would still be in his cell, so their destination was the guardsmen’s quarters. Constance and Mac had been running for a long time, the terrain rising. As they approached a junction of hallways, Mac threw out an arm, signaling a stop. Constance nearly bumped into him, her shoes skidding on the stone.

“There’s someone ahead,” Mac mouthed. “I saw movement.”

They waited. Then Constance saw it wasn’t people. “My God,” Constance breathed. “There’s another one,” murmured Mac. “Incredible.” For a moment, the shadows seemed to part. The first was visible only for a moment, a flash of white crossing the cor ridor ahead. Constance blinked, thinking it was a trick of her eyes. She leaned forward, her body resting against the delicious heat of Mac’s broad back. The sensation nearly made her forget everything else.

Then there was another flash of white. This time she got a good look, because it paused.

It was about the size of a deer, its pale coat dappled in light gray. Long, slender legs ended in cloven hooves, a silvery sheen glistening from the long mane and tail. It lifted its head, whuffing, sniffing the air. Nervously, it turned its head.

At the center of its forehead, the spiraling horn shone like mother-of-pearl.

It was so beautiful, Constance wanted to weep. If that was not splendor enough, two more of its kind joined it. Constance blinked, her eyes dry from staring. One of the newcomers touched noses with the first, and the three moved away, passing out of sight.

Mac turned, his eyes alight. He slid his arm around her. “Did you see that?”

“They’re from the levels below,” said Constance. “If they’ve been driven this far up the corridors, the lower caverns must be disappearing.”

“What else is down there?” Mac asked uneasily.

Constance shook her head. “No one knows for sure.”

Alessandro followed Lore’s second-in-command through what must have been the worst rat maze in the Castle. These were narrow, cold passageways, some so cramped that Alessandro had to turn sideways to slip through. Torches were rare, and at times there was barely enough light for even his vampire sight to function. However, he wasn’t complaining. They had met no guardsmen, and the hounds were perfectly certain of their path. “How much farther?” he asked.

The lead hound cast a glance over his shoulder. His name was Bevan, a young, solid-looking hound who seemed to be Lore’s friend as well as his right hand—or would that be paw?

“Another five minutes,” he said, the words colored by the almost Slavic accent the hounds had. At least this one spoke with nonhounds. Many either couldn’t or wouldn’t.

Alessandro nodded, ducking as the corridor ceiling dipped. He’d already unhooked his broadsword from its hanger and carried it by the scabbard. It had proved a nuisance in the narrow spaces.

There were six hounds following him, six pairs of shuffling feet and six beating hearts. Hounds are not food, he told himself, but he could feel the vague tug of hunger, anyway. Just nerves. If he stayed long enough, the urge to feed would pass entirely, smothered by the Castle’s magic.

Smothered. The word rattled through his head. Claustrophobia tickled between his shoulder blades. Lore is going to owe me for this.

Bevan stopped, raising a hand to signal a halt. He raised his head, sniffing. Alessandro did, too, wondering what disturbed their guide. Something unfamiliar struck his senses. It was subtle, no more than a faint metallic tang.

“Run!” Bevan sprang forward, bounding down what was now no more than a hole through the stone.

Alessandro didn’t argue. He raced after, vampire speed matching the hellhounds’, pace for pace. After a hundred more feet, the passageway widened, allowing for more freedom. He could hear the hounds behind him, one beginning to howl with panic, a strange half-human, half-canine sound. What’s back there?

And then the tunnel began to tremble, dust falling in gusts as if a giant baker were tossing handfuls of flour. Alessandro heard the clink of stone shifting, the rattle of mortar shaken loose. The roof of the tunnel began to slope upward and he gratefully straightened, lengthening his stride.

The passage opened into a cave, and he took a last bound into the torchlight, hard on Bevan’s heels. The cave was filled with hounds, a babble of excited voices. Lore had said there were forty in this group. There had to be at least half that many again, some just babes in arms. Alessandro wheeled, looking behind him. The last of the hounds was leaping out Of the passage, arms and legs flying wide.

And then, with a sound like the swish of a sliding door, the tunnel disappeared. He had expected a crash, an avalanche of falling rock. Alessandro gaped for a moment, and turned to Bevan.

“That’s how it happens,” said the hound. “The outer territories have already gone.”

“If we’d still been in there?”

Bevan shrugged.

Forcing his hands to be steady, Alessandro fiddled with his sword, attaching the scabbard back on its hanger. His thoughts felt like rubber balls, frantically bouncing off the insides of his skull. I hate magic. I really, really hate magic.

He sucked in a breath and looked around the cave. There was another door. At least they weren’t trapped.

Then he took in the hounds. “These are mostly females and children,” he said.

“Yes,” said Bevan. “The males are dead. Killed by the changelings and goblins.”

Alessandro cursed inwardly. Some of the hounds were in their beast form, black dogs with long, pointed snouts and upright ears. They all looked exhausted, especially the children. He had a sudden, vivid memory from his human life, of playing with his own younger siblings. He knew a tired toddler when he saw one.

But there was no time to rest. He looked at their mothers, trying to gauge their condition. All the hounds were ragged, the clothes sewn from coarse, hand-dyed material the weight of old sacking. Their feet were bare. What they did have were bright strings of painted wooden beads— rich, gaudy colors defiant against the Castle’s gray-on-gray hues. Women always find a way to shine.

He had to believe the beads. These mothers would get their children to safety, if he and the male hounds could secure a path.

Bevan was talking to an older woman, who wore many bright strands around her neck. An elder, and probably a grandmother. She held a little girl on her hip, who peeked at Alessandro with wide, dark eyes. She’s going to break hearts someday.

The words flew fast in the houndish tongue, with a lot of pointing at the remaining door.

“What does she say?” Alessandro asked Bevan.

“That way leads to the dark pool of water. From there it is possible to find the Castle door.”

“Is that way guarded?”

“That is not the problem.”

Bevan turned back to the woman, who talked some more.

“What?” Alessandro snapped, apprehension making him impatient. “Are the corridors vanishing?”

“No,” said Bevan. He asked another question, got a one-word reply. “They’re afraid. There’s something out there.”

“What?”

“She doesn’t know. A creature that spreads darkness. They ran in here before it got too close. And then they were too tired to carry on.”

Alessandro pushed past Bevan, storming toward the doorway.

The hound caught his arm. “What are you doing?”

“You and your men stay and keep these people safe.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find out what that something is.”

Connie and Mac raced down the narrow walkway that overlooked the guardsmen’s courtyard. Mac stopped, looking over the railing at the benches and empty dormitories below. The fires were burning, but the courtyard was | empty.

“Where are the guardsmen?” Connie asked.

“Up to no good,” Mac growled. “What are those?”

He pointed to a row of frames that stood in the courtyard. They looked like giant tennis rackets standing on their handles. Some sort of hides were strung in the middle, lashed to the frames as if to stretch them. They were a light brown, with dark rosettes, and whatever creatures they came from had been huge.

“Trolls,” Connie said weakly. “Those were trolls. That’s Bran’s work.”

“Do they hunt them?”

“It’s punishment. Trolls are slow but they talk. They live in tribes.”

Mac’s stomach heaved. Did one of those hides belong to the creature he’d seen thrown into a cell? Furious, he flung himself down one of the stairs that zigzagged down to the cells beneath. “Do you see anyone in the cells?”

“Are the caves their cells?” Connie asked, jogging down the stairs after him. “Because there’s someone in that one.”

“Where?” Mac asked.

“There.” She pointed to a cell across the courtyard. “He—I’m pretty sure it’s a he—isn’t moving.”

Mac squinted. She was right. “Good eyesight. That’s a guardsman’s coat. I’ll bet you a quarter that’s Reynard.”

He turned to Connie. “I need your key.”

She gave it to him with a questioning look.

“Let’s see if it works on the cell doors. Wait here.” Mac dusted across the courtyard, materializing right outside Reynard’s cell. The ledge outside the cell door was as wide as a sidewalk, allowing Mac plenty of space to crouch and look inside the bars.

What he saw disgusted him. The cell was tiny, not large enough to lie, or stand, or even sit in comfortably. The captain’s usually spotless clothes were torn and blotted with blood.

Perhaps most cruel of all, he was conscious. “My own men did this.” Reynard’s expression hovered somewhere between a grimace and a rueful smile. “You look shocked, demon.”

“I served as a kind of guardsman in my old life. This is shocking.”

“They claimed I let you escape.”

“Yeah, well, just be glad I got away, because I’m here now.” Mac pressed the gold disk against the lock. It flared with light. The mechanism ground with a shrill squeal, and then a clank. The light winked out. He yanked the door open. It came away in a cloud of stone dust, the raw ends of the bars scraping the rocks.

Reynard moved to crawl out, but his limbs refused to obey.

“Hang on.” Mac reached in, grabbing the man’s hip and arm and dragging him forward. Reynard collapsed to his hands and knees, his limbs too stiff and weak to stand. Mac steadied him with one hand. The landing at the top of the stairs was small. A false step would take the captain a long, long way down to the courtyard below.

“Where is the incubus now?” Mac demanded.

Reynard shook his head. “Gone. The others took him to the black lake.”

Damn. They had guessed wrong, come to the wrong place. “When?”

“Not an hour ago.” Reynard grasped the top of the cell door and determinedly got his feet under him.

Mac grabbed the captain’s jacket with one hand and hauled him to a standing position. Reynard wobbled dangerously. He hunched, holding one arm across his stomach.

“I’ll help you stop them if I can.” Reynard said. “Anything to stop Bran.”

“Can you walk?”

“Of course. Just give me a moment.”

Mac kept one hand on Reynard’s shoulder, steadying him. “Do you know where the sorcerer is?”

“Atreus? They took him as well.”

Mac glanced across the courtyard to see Connie, leaning on the rail and watching. It was going to be a slog to get Reynard across the courtyard to join her. Or not. “Hold still.”

“What?”

They rematerialized on the other side of the courtyard. Reynard grabbed the railing with white knuckles. “God’s teeth!”

“Shortcut,” Mac said with a grin, but his smile wilted.

He’d been fooled by the guardsman’s bravado. Connie grabbed Reynard’s arm as he started to slowly collapse. Mac helped her ease him to a sitting position. Connie crouched in front of the captain, then drew back sharply.

She could smell the blood, Mac realized, as he saw her eyes flash silver. Even guardsmen’s blood would catch the notice of a fledgling, and they hadn’t been in the Castle long enough for her hunger to be entirely subdued.

“How badly are you hurt?” she asked, one hand over her nose and mouth.

Reynard gave a hollow smile. “I simply need to stretch my legs.”

He said it as casually as a country gentleman about to take a stroll around his estate. The only trace of strain he showed was a deepening of the lines in his face. He barely let the discomfort reach his eyes, but then he pressed his hand to his stomach. Blood seeped over his fingers, making tiny rivulets over his skin.

“On second thought, perhaps you should leave me,” Reynard said.

“If I leave you here, you’ll be dead meat,” Mac said, frowning down at him. With short, efficient movements, he bent and pulled open the captain’s jacket, then tore open the fine cotton shirt beneath. Mac caught his breath. “Sword wound?”

“Bran’s ax.”

Mac felt his gorge rising for the second time that morning. “Haven’t you guys ever heard of rock, paper, scissors?”