A Darkness Strange and Lovely (Something Strange and Deadly #2)(97)

“Stay, stay, stay!” I shouted, and from the other side of the room, Oliver bellowed, “Mane, stay!”

A thunderous roar filled the cavern. All the torches whipped out, leaving only the electric blue of my magic and Joseph’s crackling attacks to see by. Not that I could see—not now. The agony in my hand was too much. I toppled forward, my arms windmilling and all focus on my spell lost.

The Hell Hounds had arrived.

Time seemed to slow. I heard the Hounds’ monstrous jaws snapping behind me, coming closer each fraction of a heartbeat. I felt each throb in my hand and each tiny gust of unnatural wind.

“Bring back my hand, Oliver,” I whispered, still falling forward, still trying to regain my balance.

“Sum veritas.”

A body hurled into me, screaming in Latin. I crashed down, and the squalling Hounds boomed over us. In that instant the pain in my hand ceased. It was its usual phantom limb—flesh and blood—once more.

Yet the Hounds did not stop their frenzied chase. They blasted straight into Madame Marineaux.

Her body rose up and up, and the Hounds swirled around her in a tornado of blue flames. Her shrieks pierced the cavern, shaking my soul.

I am not ready. Not ready . The thoughts cleaved into my brain. Her thoughts—her fears. Claire! she yelled into my mind. Claire! Help me—save me! I am not ready. . . .

And then finally, a thought that nestled so deeply into my heart, I knew it was meant only for me:I was wrong about you. You will topple him. An image flashed next—the cane . . . no, only the ivory fist. Then the vision shifted to a gray Oriental fan on a low shelf in Madame Marineaux’s sitting room.

The image vanished.

Her agonized screams crescendoed, dominating every thought. I watched as she spun . . . as the

Hell Hounds’ roars shook through everything.

Then her body bent backward, snapping in half like a stick, and in a final rage of howling, the Hell

Hounds swirled Madame Marineaux from this world and into thin air.

Into oblivion.

Chapter Twenty-four

Vibrations from the Hell Hounds shimmered in the air, and I waited for the sounds to vanish. My stomach pressed to the cold ground. Oliver’s heartbeat stuttered against my back.

One breath, two breaths—the sounds of struggle were not lessening. If anything, they were growing worse. Bones clattered and lightning blasted from the back corner. A pistol cracked and

Daniel bellowed, “Empress —help! ”

Oliver rolled off me. I scrambled to my feet and surged for the flashes of blue. Toward the horrors of the Dead.

No, not Dead. Hungry. For these corpses were no longer under Madame Marineaux’s control. They were free now, and rabid.

Skeletons crawled over their brethren, tatters of clothes loose on their bodies and chunks of brittle hair on their gleaming skulls. Hundreds poured from the mouth of the tunnel, crawling and climbing and scuttling for the nearest life: the Spirit-Hunters—their backs still to the wall and surrounded on all sides.

A corpse, its ragged shirt falling off its bone shoulders, twisted around and lurched at me. Without thinking, I latched onto my spiritual energy and flung. Magic flared from my fingertips and raced out, blasting into a skeletal rib cage.

And for half a moment I was bound to the ball of soul that animated the body. I did the only thing I could think to do. “Sleep,” I said. “Sleep.” The soul flared once and winked out like a match.

The corpse fell—one single corpse out of hundreds. Panic and frustration boiled through me . . . yet this was the best I could do, so I had no choice but to keep going.

“Oliver!” My vocal cords snapped as I screamed for the demon. “Stop as many Dead as you can!

Sum veritas!”

His eyes flashed beside me, and then his voice took up with my own. “Dormi!”

“Sleep!” Blue light shot from my hand, and more Hungry toppled over. If I could only make a path and get the Spirit-Hunters out, then we could run.

Over and over, Oliver and I took aim one after the other and chanted, “Dormi, sleep , dormi!” And all the while, Joseph’s electricity never stopped blazing and Daniel’s pistols never stopped cracking.

But my magic was getting weaker—Oliver’s too. The light whipping from our hands was paler and our chanting fainter. Would he keep going until he was so drained he collapsed? “Stop,” I ordered him.

He didn’t stop. “They’re almost free! Dormi!” His eyes shone blue, and a final flicker of power pierced the nearest corpse.

And he was right: the Spirit-Hunters could get out.

“Come on!” I bellowed at them. “Come!” Then, grabbing Oliver’s arm, I wrenched him toward the tunnel in the right corner. If Madame Marineaux wanted to take it, it had to be the best way out. It was also our only choice.

I spared one glance back to check that the Spirit-Hunters followed. They did.

And so did the Hungry.

I could barely see—only the flash of Joseph’s electricity gave me any light—but Oliver held fast to my hand, and he seemed to know where to go.

And behind us, the corpses’ jaws did not stop chomping. The sound—that clattering and snapping of long-dead teeth—covered everything. Louder than my rasping breaths, than my thrashing pulse, than Daniel’s screams for me to run faster . . .

Then we reached the tunnel and were barreling through. Ahead was the faintest flicker of orange—