A Darkness Strange and Lovely (Something Strange and Deadly #2)(88)

For now, I could only hope that one day the memories would return.

Somewhere in the dark beside me, I could hear Daniel changing as well. Joseph stood with the lantern at the tunnel’s mouth. Oliver skulked along the water, staring into its black depths. He twisted around and approached. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

“It isn’t a want,” I said, tying my final bootlace. “It’s a need.”

Oliver held out his hand and helped me stand, but he didn’t release my fingers. “And you realize how strong this demon is, right?”

I nodded, even though I had no idea, not even an inkling, of how strong a demon could be. In the end it did not matter, for it would not change what I intended to do. “You don’t have to come, Oliver.”

“But I will. If I hadn’t left you, you wouldn’t have almost drowned.”

I squeezed his hand. “And if I had not been careless with Elijah’s letters, you would not have had to leave.”

“Empress?” Daniel called softly.

I turned and in the flickering lantern light saw him padding close. Four pistols hung in a leather bandolier across his chest.

Daniel didn’t meet my eyes. “We’re going now.” Then he strode past me, heading for the lantern.

For Joseph. For the tunnel into darkness.

I hurried after, Oliver on my heels. Soon enough, I could see the tunnel: a jagged crack in the white wall with barely enough space through which to squeeze.

“Look.” Joseph waved Daniel over. “There is blood. And cloth.”

I crept closer, until I too could make out the dark stain on the bricks as well as several tiny tatters of brown fabric. “Signs of the Dead?”

Joseph did not answer. He merely backed away from the crack and said, “Eleanor and the demon go first.”

Daniel’s gaze flickered uncertainly to me. “Or maybe I should go first.”

“Let Eleanor’s demon face its kin.”

“Unless . . .” Daniel swallowed. “Unless he leads us into a trap. I think you should let me go first.”

He scratched his neck. “Eleanor and the demon can pick up the rear.”

Joseph nodded curtly and handed Daniel the lantern. Then, after checking that his bandolier was well fastened, Daniel hefted the lantern high and slithered through the crack. Joseph squeezed in just behind.

I threw Oliver a glance.

“No chance you’ll reconsider?” he asked, his eyebrows high.

“None.”

He spread his hands. “Then lead the way, Master Eleanor.”

I wedged myself in, and after wriggling through several feet of rough rock that scraped and latched onto my clothes, I finally toppled out the other side. Water dripped from the reddish walls like blood, and I couldn’t tell if the rust color of the stones was from the lantern’s flame or their natural color.

Daniel’s face flickered ahead. He was waiting, his head crooked to keep from hitting it on the low ceiling.

“There are clear signs of passage,” Joseph murmured, his gaze cast down. “Many footsteps have come this way—dragging, uncoordinated footsteps, I would say. And if it was this easy for us to enter here, then why not les Morts?”

I glanced down, trying to see whatever Joseph saw, but I did not have enough light.

Seconds later Oliver squirmed out behind me, his yellow eyes glowing in the dim light. Without a word, Daniel pivoted around and crept off.

The passage descended steadily, and the air turned thicker—as if I were breathing in the stones themselves. Our feet crunched on the sandy floor, but soon the walls sweated so heavily, the droplets collected on the ground in unseen puddles. Cold water sloshed into my boots, numbing my toes.

Yet on we went, the tunnels twisting and winding like a snake. Always sloping down. Always growing colder, until eventually my breath curled out in smoky tendrils. How many years—or centuries—had Parisians been mining beneath their city? To have opened up a honeycomb of caves so extensive and so deep . . . I felt like an ant descending into the anthill. But instead of a queen, we sought a demon.

I do not know how far we traveled—it felt as if we walked for hours—but by the time the ceiling finally lifted enough for Daniel to unfurl his lanky form, I was bone-cold and shambling like the Dead.

And all I wanted was for this descent to end. I was more than a little tempted to call on my power —not only for warmth, but for courage. Yet if Joseph sensed me casting a spell . . . It was not worth his wrath. Not when we were this close.

Of course, several twisting tunnels later I was already regretting my decision to ignore my power, for now we were not only cold and exhausted, we were forced to stop.

Two branches split off.

I hugged my arms to my chest. How much longer? I bounced on my toes, trying to get feeling back into them. Trying to quell my impatience and ignore the now insistent craving for magic.

The lantern cast shadows on the wall in phantom-shapes—long figures with even longer arms that seemed to wriggle and writhe in time with Daniel’s and Joseph’s soft murmuring.

I licked my lips. Fight the magic a bit longer. To distract myself, I whispered, “Oliver, how do we stop the demon?”

“If it’s bound to the Marquis, it won’t be too difficult. Its magic will be limited to the Marquis’s commands, and we simply . . . I don’t know, rope it up.”