A Darkness Strange and Lovely (Something Strange and Deadly #2)(86)

“Oh God,” I breathed. “You both hate me.” I scuttled away from them.

Daniel’s eyes widened, and his hand lifted—ever so slightly—as if to reach for me. But then it dropped. He twisted his face away.

“You betrayed us,” Joseph said carefully. “Your magic—”

Joseph didn’t get to finish, for at that moment the passageway filled with the slap of running feet. I jerked around just as Oliver flew into the lantern light.

“El!” He launched himself at me, completely unconcerned when Daniel leaped up and grabbed him.

“Let go of him!” I tried to stand, but the room spun. All I could manage was a swaying crouch.

“Stop, Daniel!”

But Oliver didn’t even notice that Daniel held him in a stranglehold. All he saw was me. “Where have you been, El? I couldn’t sense you—I couldn’t find you! I thought you were dead. I searched and searched and strained, but I couldn’t feel our bond—”

“Enough,” Daniel snarled. He wrenched upward, closing off Oliver’s air.

“Stop!” I shrieked, and this time I got to my feet, only to find Joseph leaping to his—a crystal clamp in hand. “He won’t hurt you! Please!”

Daniel looked to Joseph, who nodded once. Daniel released Oliver, and the demon toppled to me, yanking me into an embrace.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “For yelling and for leaving—I thought

I had lost you. I thought you were dead. But you aren’t—you’re alive and you’re here. . . .” He pulled back, as if suddenly realizing where “here” was as well as the absence of my clothing. “What the hell happened? When I couldn’t sense you, I went to the hotel. They told me you had gone to the ball with

Madame Marineaux, so I came here. But when I reached a few blocks away, suddenly I could feel you again. So I came running as fast as I could . . .” His head swiveled as he took in the dark tunnel. “But I still don’t understand what happened.”

“Joseph thinks I was under a compulsion spell.”

Oliver reared back. “The amulet? The Marquis’s?”

“The Marquis has not been here tonight,” Joseph said, his crystal clamp still held at the ready.

“That doesn’t mean his amulet could not be cast.” Oliver turned a cool eye on the Spirit-Hunter.

“They are meant to be used long-distance.”

Joseph bristled. “Yet if, as you believe, the Marquis’s cane has seventy-three compulsion spells in it—”

“Seventy-three?” I interrupted. “Have there not been seventy-four Morts?”

“No,” Daniel said, his eyes never leaving Oliver.

“Then where were you all day? After . . . after . . .” I didn’t finish the sentence. They knew what I meant.

“We followed a lead on Jie,” Joseph answered. “It led us all across the city.”

“And?” I asked hopefully.

Daniel’s eyes slid to mine, thin and hard. “The trail went cold at the train station, and we were late for this damned ball.”

“What if,” Oliver said quietly to me, “you were meant to be the seventy-fourth victim?”

Daniel sneered. “Except that she almost drowned. A dead victim ain’t any good for a sacrifice.”

“Unless she wasn’t supposed to drown at all.” Oliver pointed into the darkness. “What if she was meant to go down that tunnel?”

“Tunnel?” Joseph whirled around. “I see no tunnel.”

“Well, I do.” Oliver sniffed derisively. “There’s a crack in the bricks at the end of this reservoir.

Maybe it goes somewhere.”

At an almost imperceptible nod from Joseph, Daniel lifted the lantern and crept off along the flagstones. The light swung with his steps, and beams of yellow shot over the water—and illuminated a path running alongside it. Soon enough, Joseph, Oliver, and I were left in blackness and Daniel was nothing more than a beacon in the dark.

And still Joseph’s hand stayed around his crystal clamp. “Even if that tunnel goes somewhere, it does not explain how Eleanor was bespelled. Everything about her behavior and lack of memory suggests she was compelled.”

“Does it really matter how she was compelled?” Oliver demanded. “The fact is that this Marquis or demon is powerful enough to make an amulet and powerful enough to compel his victims. So what actually matters is that you’re up against something much bloody stronger than you.” He sounded almost pleased by this.

I, however, was not. Yet before I could speak, Daniel shouted, “There’s a tunnel here.” He jumped into a jog toward us, and with each step closer, the light grew brighter, until he stood right beside me and I had to squint to see.

Daniel set the lantern on the floor. “It looks like it connects to a limestone quarry.”

Joseph frowned. “Limestone quarry?”

“Yeah. Most of Paris is riddled with underground quarries—limestone, gypsum . . . there’s the catacombs too.”

“Wi, but what good would such quarries be to a demon?”

“A lot,” Oliver muttered. “Seems obvious to me. This cellar here isn’t the only entrance into the quarries. All the tunnels connect, and there are entrances all over Paris. This demon simply has to trick his victims into any one of those limestone holes, lure them through the mines to his lair, and voilà.”