Hellcat: To Hell And Back Part 15

"What?" Julius demanded.

"I think it's trying to collapse the cave on us," she replied, throwing a chin in the Seeker's direction.

"Oh G.o.ds," Julius breathed, also glancing the Seeker's way. "Benedict, hurry."

"The rest are coming, Julius," Benedict yelled over his shoulder. "Use the fire; I can magnify it."

Gabi dragged her gaze off the Seeker to see the remnants of the demon force closing in quickly.

"Fire?" she asked, confused, but not daring to glance Julius's way, readying herself for the demons. She could feel Julius's uncertainty, but then his resolve hardened. The power radiating from him swirled faster, suddenly giving off a sense of stinging heat, as though tiny sparks of flame were hitting her exposed face. She was forced to move another step away from him. She heard him pull in a deep breath, and felt some kind of electric zing between him and Benedict. Athena's quiet chant continued, unrelenting, and the closest demons were just a few feet away. Gabi raised Nex, palming a second sword in her left hand, and then a wall of flames taller than her and at least a foot deep leapt to life two feet in front of her.

"Holy smoke," Gabi yelped, backing up a step from the searing heat.

The nearest demons couldn't halt their forward progress quickly enough and ran into it. Instantly they began an unearthly, keening yowl, surging back and batting wildly at the flames that now encompa.s.sed their bodies, feeding on their clothing, weapons, body hair, anything combustible. Gabi looked around, her mouth open; she could feel the heat on her tongue. The wall of magical fire surrounded them in a tight circle. Demons on all sides were suffering the same plight. The forerunners' crazed flailing around quickly pa.s.sed the fire to others near them; within seconds they were all reeling around in apparent agony.

Gabi forced her open mouth closed just as the original flames began to splutter and die out. She turned to Julius just in time to see him sway. Gabi dropped the spare sword to shove a shoulder under his right arm. His lack of protest to her support caused her heart to beat a little faster in her chest. She looked up at him to see sweat running down his face. His eyes were glazed, and he was breathing in short gasps.

"c.r.a.p," Gabi muttered, taking as much of his weight as she could manage and wrapping her left arm around his waist. Suddenly the rocky ground under her feet rolled, heaving and bucking as an awful, prolonged boom shattered the air. "Athena, how long?" she yelled.

"Almost. There," Benedict's voice answered her. The words sounded as though they came from behind clenched teeth. Acrid, foul-smelling smoke was filling the cavern as the demons burned, stinging her eyes and searing her throat and lungs.

"I'll take 'im, la.s.s." Fergus's voice boomed in her right ear as she succ.u.mbed to a coughing fit.

"Gabi, come on," Kyle's voice yelled urgently over the unending thunder of moving rock and earth. She reluctantly relinquished her position at Julius's side to Fergus, his taller, bulkier frame far better suited to supporting him, but she didn't like the feeling of separation when Julius was so vulnerable. Another more localised shockwave hit and sent Gabi sprawling on her b.u.t.t. She knew the taste of the magic, though; it was Athena. She'd released the banishing spell. A long, angry shriek sounded from where the Seeker had been standing; then it suddenly cut off, the eerie green illumination with it. Gabi brushed smoke-induced tears from her eyes and pulled her shirt up to cover her mouth and nose, squinting into the deep gloom. Kyle, only a few feet away now, dodging stinking heaps of burning demon, yelled at her to move, waving his arms wildly.

"Come on," she rasped, hardly able to hear herself over the chaos, but the others responded, following her lead. Athena and Benedict clung to each other, but Gabi wasn't sure exactly who was supporting who. They both looked frayed around the edges. The earth gave another sickening lurch under their feet, bringing them to a halt while they reeled, trying to stay upright. Dozens of rocks, some Gabi-sized, rained down from the walls and ceiling, adding clouds of dust to the already thick air.

"Hurry the f.u.c.k up." Alexander materialised out of the darkness, alongside Kyle, and rushed to take up Julius's other side.

"I've got the rear. Go!" screamed Kyle as she pa.s.sed him.

She broke into a slow, shuffling jog; visibility was down to less than two feet. An eternity and a half later they seemed to be clear of dead and dying demons, but Gabi only had a vague notion of the direction of the water-chute cave. All this and not only had they not achieved their target, they didn't even know where the Dark Ones were.

"Ten degrees left," Alexander shouted.

One thing at a time, she reminded herself, forcing her attention back to the ground in front of her feet and making the necessary adjustment. Ten more breaths, forty-six steps and two more changes in direction and suddenly the entrance to the smaller cave appeared from the murk.

"What's going on? Is that you guys?" A voice echoed from inside the cave. It was male, but unusually high pitched, stressed and excited. "Please don't be demons. Please don't be demons. Oh s.h.i.t, this place is coming down."

"Who the f.u.c.k-" Gabi began, but Kyle cut her off.

"Get inside," he bellowed and then broke off coughing. "Explain later," came out as more of a wheeze. A loud, spine-chilling crack sounded directly above them, and there was no more time to argue. The seven of them tumbled into the cave just as a car-sized chunk of rock careened off the wall above where they'd been standing and landed with a resounding explosion of sound and debris, fracturing into several smaller pieces and spraying sharp granite chips in every direction.

"Anybody got some light?" Gabi asked in the sudden silence. She was face-down on the hard-packed ground with someone lying across her legs and one hip. Too heavy to be Athena and too warm to be a Vampire, it could only be Kyle. "Gerroff," she wheezed, coughing and thumping him with her free arm. She'd lost Nex somewhere in the crush and hoped no one had been stabbed by accident. The familiar glow of Athena's crystal lit the cave as Kyle rolled off her legs. She jumped to her feet, counting heads and sagging in relief when she realised they'd all made it inside. As the others unjumbled themselves, Gabi went to a.s.sess the entranceway.

"Oh, by all the G.o.ds of Atlantis," she muttered. "Will anything go right today?" The way into the larger cave was completely blocked by the humongous rock; their only way out now was back up the slick, smooth, ten-foot-long water chute.

CHAPTER 19.

Gabi leaned her b.u.t.t against the wall near the blocked entrance of the tiny cave and bent forward, racked with coughing as her lungs tried to rid themselves of dust and dead demon. She pulled a strip of fabric from a pocket inside her leather jacket and wiped her eyes clear of tears and grime. She glanced around, checking on Julius, who was sitting on the ground with his back against one wall. He looked beyond tired, but alive. Kyle and Alexander came to inspect the no-longer-an-entranceway. If the cave had been crowded with five of them inside earlier, it was close to claustrophobic with seven, no, hold on, make that eight of them.

"Kyle, who the h.e.l.l is that?" she rasped, waving vaguely at the scrawny young man fidgeting nervously next to the pool of water at the bottom of the chute.

"Don't really know," Kyle admitted. "Found him lurking in the shadows when I went looking for the Dark Ones. He's human, as far as I can tell."

"Uh..." the man started, paused, then rushed on, his words almost a jumble. "Uh, my name is Henry. You...uh...you guys aren't like those other ones, are you? You're not going to bleed me, drink my blood, use it for magic rituals? Holy crow, what were those things out there?" He spoke so fast it was hard to keep up.

Gabi wanted to slap him, but didn't have the energy to waste. She held up a hand, and his words trailed off. "Henry, what are you doing down here? How did you even get here?"

"Well," he said, his eyes flicking nervously from Fergus to Julius to Kyle and back to her. His disregard for Athena, Alexander and Benedict had to be based on physical looks, meaning he truly had no idea of the supernatural world. He licked his lips and then continued. "I was just walking home after a movie. Last night...no, wait...it could've been two nights ago. What day is it today?"

Gabi gritted her teeth, thinking it may be a good thing she hadn't found Nex yet. "Short and sweet, Henry, get to the point quick," she growled. Then she regretted her impatience as the human froze, panic setting in, and the Vampires all glanced his way, his fear and anxiety calling to them. She sighed. "Keep going, Henry. No one here will hurt you," she said, trying to inject rea.s.surance into her tone, but tacking on, "Except me," under her breath.

"Um, yeah, well, they grabbed me," he finally continued, "these two weirdo guys. They looked exactly alike, but...weird. And they had this weird vibe about them. And, well, I didn't want to go with them, but what else could I do. And we got into this car, and there was a woman inside. She really gave me the creeps, the way she looked at me. I swear it's the way a butcher looks at a pig." His words came so fast that they almost ran into each other; Gabi was waiting for the pile-up.

"Henry," Gabi said, a tiny note of warning in her tone. The shaking of the ground had stopped, but that didn't mean they were safe from further rock collapses. She wanted to get out of this place as fast as possible.

"Yeah, right, sorry. So they took me to this warehouse, and inside were lots of people, men and women, but there was something off about all of them, but not the same as the first weirdos. And then the double-act and the woman made me follow them down here to these other two old guys. They also freaked me out. They had this hungry look in their eyes, and they talked funny and wore black cloaks. There was a bit of an argument between the young ones and the old ones. The old ones told them I was a Null, and I was useless for whatever they were supposed to be doing. I didn't know what they were talking about. I didn't understand half of what they said. The young ones went off in a huff and disappeared, and the old ones seemed to forget about me. I was left standing in the big cave, like a rock or something. Later the young ones came back with another guy, and they-" The non-stop chatter broke off. His throat worked like he was swallowing back bile; his eyes were suddenly haunted. "And they...they just cut his throat, right there in front of me, and collected the blood in a silver vase thing. I don't know much else. I think...I think I sort of pa.s.sed out after that. The next thing I remember they were standing in front of a thing that looked like...I don't know how to describe it...maybe like the ghost of a mirror?" He looked over at Gabi, his eyes beseeching her to understand. "They seemed happy and excited, like they'd won the Superbowl or something, and then each one stepped into the mirror and disappeared. When the last one disappeared, I looked around, and him," he pointed to Benedict, "and him," he motioned to Julius, "came rushing into the cave and all those...things," he shuddered, "came rushing out of the shadows towards them. And you kinda know the rest." He trailed off with a shrug.

"Well, that explains why I couldn't find the Dark Ones," Kyle muttered. He bent down and picked something up off the floor, flicking it towards Gabi. She caught Nex by the hilt, feeling a tiny kernel of relief at having the sword back in her hand. A tiny alarm buzzing in the back of her brain made her wriggle past Fergus to get to Julius and sink down onto the floor next to him. She looked him over, then wordlessly sliced into one of the veins in her left wrist and pressed it to his mouth. His eyes flew open, and he tried to pull back, but his head was against rock, and she had him cornered. His rapid capitulation spoke volumes. She gritted her teeth against the sensations that coursed through her as he began to feed. She looked around, suddenly realising that instead of the usual group discussion that should be going on, there was silence. Her eyes fell on Athena and Benedict. They were side by side, their faces turned to each other, and both had horrified looks on their faces.

"What?" she demanded, not sure she felt up to the challenge of what they were about to say.

"They created a Travel Gate," Athena whispered, disbelief in her voice.

"What's a Travel Gate?" Gabi asked, but thought she already knew the answer.

"A gateway to another place." Benedict confirmed Gabi's suspicions. "A sort of wormhole, only, as far as I know, they only jump Magi to a different place, not a different time. So far, time travel is beyond even the best of us. I hope," he tacked on at the end.

"And...?" Gabi pressed. "That's so bad, why?"

"Travel Gates are terribly difficult magic to cast," Benedict explained, a sharp V furrowed his forehead. "It takes a certain type of magic and a combination of powers and abilities. The fact that they got it right is not good news for those of us going up against them."

"What do you mean a certain type of magic?" Kyle asked.

"What the Castus Magi practice is referred to as Natural Magic," Benedict seemed impatient, but not with Kyle. "It requires only drawing on one's own talent or that given freely by another or what is in the natural surroundings."

"Earth, wind, fire, water," Athena put in.

"Then there's Blood Magic," Benedict continued. "Blood is very powerful and can be used in several ways to augment power or create dark spells or deadly wards. The third kind fits somewhere between the two, and it's used to harness the darker natural powers, storms, lightning, earthquakes, that kind of thing. It can also help create things like Travel Gates."

"s.e.x Magic," Athena whispered into the gloomy cave. "They're using s.e.x Magic." Her face was a mask of distaste.

"What else can s.e.x Magic do?" Gabi asked.

"It's not so much what s.e.x Magic can do, but what it can do when combined with Blood Magic," Benedict explained. "And that is just about anything their devious little minds can think of."

Julius gently tugged Gabi's arm from his mouth, glancing at it to make sure it was healing. Then he stood, pulling her up with him, and quickly a.s.sessed her from head to foot, a.s.suring himself she was more or less in one piece.

"First things first," he declared. "Let's get out of here."

"What do we do with the human?" Alexander asked. He was surrept.i.tiously standing guard, obviously distrustful of the man.

"Bring him," Julius said. "We can't leave him down here. One of the Magi can erase his memory when we get above ground."

"Uh, no, you can't," Benedict said. "He's a Null."

"And by Null, you mean someone who nullifies magic, I a.s.sume?" Gabi checked.

"Ten points to the lady with the sword." Benedict beamed at her, but there was no real amus.e.m.e.nt in the smile.

"Bring him anyway." Gabi sighed. "We can figure out what to do with him later."

Getting back up the chute didn't prove quite as problematic as Gabi had expected. Alexander went up first, muttering something under his breath about the smell of wet leather and dead possums. Once he was at the top, he moved loose rocks into the path of the running water to redirect the flow away from the tunnel. Once the water slowed to a trickle, there was enough purchase on the rocks for the others to shimmy up by bracing themselves with hands and feet against the narrow sides and inching upwards. Only Henry was a problem, mostly because he was shaking with cold and shock.

The cavern above the water chute had been heavily rearranged, some large sections of wall had collapsed, and a deep crack in the rock had revealed a deep ravine between them and the side they needed to be on. Vampire strength was a good thing sometimes, Gabi reflected, as Fergus and Alexander lifted a flat piece of rock the size of a car parking s.p.a.ce and threw it into place over the ravine. The next obstacle was a little bigger.

Several cubic feet of dirt and rocks covered the tunnel leading to the room at the bottom of the stairway. Kyle did a quick sweep of the cave system near them but couldn't detect any other way out. The commlink hadn't worked since they'd left the man-made section of the warehouse, so there was no other option but to dig themselves out. Gabi was pretty sure that Patrick would've done some investigating and, as long as the warehouse was still standing, would be organising a search-and-rescue team from the other side. They stripped out of the heaviest of their protective gear and set to work, the Vampires carting the larger rocks out of the way and the others using large chips of rock to scoop dirt to either side. It was dirty, dusty, thirsty work.

"So, this whole underground thing was what?" Gabi asked into the gloom, wiping stray hairs from her sweat-damp forehead. "An elaborate trap?"

"So it would seem," Benedict agreed, from somewhere to her left.

"But who exactly was the trap laid for?" Kyle asked, then grunted as he heaved a stalact.i.te a foot thick out of his way.

"And how did they know they needed to lay a trap and then evacuate?" Alexander asked; his words were polite enough, but his tone carried accusation. "How did they know we were coming?" He was off to Gabi's right near the top of the mound of collapsed cave.

"Are you trying to imply something, Englishman?" Benedict asked mildly, his face popping into Gabi's view as he straightened.

"If the hat fits," Alexander retorted. He'd also stopped work and stared down at Benedict with narrowed eyes.

"Down, boys," Gabi snorted, flicking a handful of pebbles in Alexander's direction, "we have enough real enemies to fight."

"What if he's not as good as he says he is? Didn't he a.s.sure us they wouldn't be able to detect his snooping?" Alexander continued. "How do we even know for sure that he's not in league with them?"

"Alexander." Julius's voice echoed through the cave like a whip. "Enough. Benedict is not in league with the Dark Ones." Silence followed his words, and everyone busied themselves with digging and clearing. But just as Gabi climbed back to the top of the pile of rubble, Benedict spoke again.

"There is something to what he said." His voice was thoughtful. "Perhaps this was somewhat my fault."

"What?" Athena demanded. "There's no way-"

"I didn't take into account," Benedict interrupted her, "that one of them could be a natural Clairvoyant. It's quite possible that they foresaw our attack with enough time to take countermeasures."

"f.u.c.k." Gabi sighed; she knew she was tired when her vocabulary narrowed down to four-letter words. "There goes any chance of a surprise attack." Then she gave a subdued whoop and plonked wearily onto the nearest solid-looking rock as she heard sounds of digging and voices on the other side of the rubble.

"What worries me," Kyle said, folding himself down onto the rock next to her, "is that if they're prepared to put this much effort into stalling or diverting us, what exactly are they preparing behind the scenes that they don't want us to know about?"

Gabi honestly didn't want to think about it.

As the dirty, sweat-bedraggled group finally arrived upstairs, chaos reigned on one side of the empty warehouse and calm on the other. The Werewolves and Vampires who'd attacked them had been separated; the Vampires were under guard by some of Julius's men on one side of the open s.p.a.ce. None of them seem to have sustained wounds serious enough to require attention, and once Julius appeared, none of them gave any trouble either. Most were from small Houses, a few were Nomades Solitarii. A Magus was moving amongst them, checking to make sure all traces of the compulsion spell were gone before they would be shipped off to the outskirts of the City, with a strong warning to move off and stay away.

The Werewolves were a different swarm of bees. Oh, the Werewolves, Gabi sighed. It was easy to forget how volatile Werewolves were as a rule when you hung out with Kyle and the Werewolf Hunters. Gabi was in one of the part.i.tioned-off areas of the warehouse, a small barely furnished room with a coffee machine and some basic coffee-making supplies. They looked none too fresh, and Gabi a.s.sumed they'd been left by the previous tenants of the building. She was desperate for coffee, but not that desperate, so she'd settled for a gla.s.s of water from the tap instead. Mac and Henry were in the room with her, Henry sitting hunched in a chair with a blanket around his shoulders, uncharacteristically quiet. Mac joined her at the gla.s.s panel looking out into the warehouse s.p.a.ce beyond.

"The natives are restless," Mac remarked dryly.

The Werewolf attackers were mostly rogues, notoriously the most short-tempered of all Werewolves. Being part of a Pack helped calm tempers. Most Pack Weres learnt at least a modic.u.m of self-control; accepting leadership and protection from an Alpha brought with it certain expectations. Those who couldn't show any kind of restraint didn't last long in a Pack. The lucky ones made it as rogues; the rest an unmarked grave. Kyle and Patrick hadn't been able to calm the rabble-rousers. Each time they talked one argument down, another would start up somewhere else. There wasn't enough room in the warehouse to keep them all apart. Finally they'd chosen to call in the cavalry; three of the five Alphas of the City were on their way to help.

Gabi had forcibly calmed four of the worst offenders, the ones actually in danger of harming others, but in her already exhausted state, she couldn't do much more. After the fourth one, the world had begun to sway in front of her. Mac had somehow slipped into the warehouse and slipped an arm under her elbow, steering her towards the break room. She wasn't sure when he'd arrived, but guessed Julius had had something to do with the intervention.

"If only they were natives to the City," she grumbled. "They'd be much easier to control. The Alphas here have always been pretty good, but the Alliance has taken the cooperation to a whole new level."

"Really?" Mac asked, sounding surprised. "There are that many Alphas here? And they manage to work together?"

Gabi smiled faintly. "It's taken a lot of work, mostly by Kyle," she put heavy emphasis on the word lot, "but yes, now that they've decided to make an effort, the results have been quite amazing. The number of Werewolf-related call-outs to the SMV is a tiny fraction of what it used to be. Allowing Packs to intermingle has been interesting, to say the least; it's resulted in some changing of allegiances, but it's been kept amicable up to this point."

"They must be a force to be reckoned with now, though?" Mac turned the statement into a question.

"Mmm," Gabi agreed. "They've proven their worth more than once, and I think they will again. That seems to be the glue holding it all together."

"Why don't we go and find some coffee and some food?" Mac suggested.

Gabi turned to him with narrow-eyed suspicion. "Did he tell you to look after me?"

"Which 'he' are you referring to?" Mac groused. "I got my orders from at least three of them. And from Trish too. So just behave and make me look good, aye?"

Gabi couldn't hold back the grin. "Coffee and food does sound pretty good," she conceded. She ached from head to toe. She hadn't sustained any serious injuries-no lacerations or burns or breaks, just the cut above her eye, which had already scabbed over-but she was confident that by morning her body would be more black, blue and purple than skin tone, and every muscle would be screeching in protest at the tiniest movement.

The failure of the operation was. .h.i.tting her hard too. And she wasn't the only one feeling the effects. Athena was standing alone at one of the outer doorways looking dejected and worried; she was on her phone, Gabi could only surmise to someone on the Magi High Council. That wouldn't be an easy conversation.

"Come on, Henry," she told the human, picking up her jacket and shrugging into it. "You'd better hang with us for now." As the three of them made their way towards an emergency exit door, she sent Julius a mental kiss and saw him glance her way even as he listened to something Patrick was telling him. One side of his mouth twitched upward, and Gabi felt the ghostly touch of his lips on hers in reply.

It had taken Caspian a full week of careful surveillance of all aspects of the Princep Court, so long that he'd had to resort to feeding on vagrants from the edge of town, before he felt confident enough to show his face. During his time in the secret tunnels, he'd discovered they were more extensive than he would've believed. He'd been able to spy on everyone from the kitchen staff to the Princeps themselves, when they were holding meetings, at least. He'd been too concerned about alerting them to his presence to try spying on them in their private quarters. And he'd learnt another interesting thing. One of the human staff was aware of the secret tunnels and made use of them on a regular basis. He'd almost been uncovered by the man more than once, but had managed to slip away each time. If he'd had a little more time, and a few less pressing problems, it would've been an interesting puzzle to solve.

It was terribly frustrating simply waiting for someone to talk about a subject he was interested in. More than once he'd been tempted to come out of hiding long enough to enthral a Werewolf to do his bidding. While most who knew him knew of his ability to control a Werewolf, he had never revealed to anyone his ability to 'hear' what an enthralled Werewolf heard. Unfortunately he could only enthral a Werewolf if he could make eye contact with it, and sometimes it took a few minutes to wrest control of the wolf's mind. In that amount of time they could raise some kind of alarm. He'd been hours away from trying it despite the risk when he finally heard what he'd been waiting for.

A small party of Werewolf Court guards sitting in a break room were knocking back hard liquor and discussing the appointment of the new Princeps. They were debating the good and bad of the newcomers. The new female Princep was from Egypt and had such a superior att.i.tude the staff had dubbed her Queen Cleopatra. The man was less demanding but extremely private, and the rumour was that he'd been a gladiator in ancient Rome. This had the guards debating his age and whether it could possibly be true. Caspian had no care for listening to speculation. He was certain that the gladiator stories were fabrications anyway; Vampires of that age were few and far between.

He was about to leave his spy hole when one of the guards suddenly mentioned Helene's name, wondering how quickly she would've lured the new Princep into her bed. Caspian paused, gritting his teeth as they made vulgar jokes and discussed her s.e.xual proclivities, including her attraction to teenage boys and her love of orgies. He barely resisted smashing his fist into one of the rock walls, and was about to leave when one of them made an offhand comment about her taking the easy way out. One of the others confirmed the story, adding his own embellishments and some lewd remarks about what he would've done to her had he been on guard duty with her. The anger that had been simmering at the fool's audacity to discuss Helene evaporated instantly. If the official story was that Helene had found a way to take her own life, then it was safe to show himself at Court. Once able to mingle with the others at Court, he'd soon know if Julius had lodged a complaint with the Princeps and called his Oath of Fealty into question. And while he did that, he'd concoct a backstory to explain his abrupt disappearance.

It took only a few hours for him to find out that Julius hadn't brought up anything with the Princeps to do with him. His carefully fostered friendships at Court were finally paying dividends. The lack of formal complaint didn't mean he was in the clear with Julius, but it would be frowned on for Julius to simply kill him on sight without first taking the matter up with the Princeps. Julius was just ethical enough to obey stupid laws like that, Caspian thought with a sneer. The thought of returning to Gabrielle's company took the edge off the intense itch that had been niggling his very soul for the last several weeks. He felt at peace, and he couldn't stop the smile that spread over his face. He didn't hesitate to make travel plans.