Ruby Shadows (Born to Darkness #3)(124)

I wondered how it had gained so much strength lying in wait on the other side of the door, in the Mortal Realm. Then I remembered that the spot where Gwendolyn had first opened the door was a place of power—a hill where dark rites and rituals had been performed since time out of mind. In fact, it was to save her friend Taylor, in the middle of just such a ritual, that she opened the door in the first place. Doubtless the HellSpawn had been feeding on the excess power it found—power that had been accumulating for centuries—as it waited like a noiseless, patient spider for someone to come and try to close the door.


That someone it had been waiting for was Gwendolyn, since only a person with her soul signature could close the door that she had opened. But if it was alarmed to find me here in her stead, it didn’t show it. It snapped and clawed, relentlessly determined to reach me and latch onto my face. I knew it could sense the stolen piece of soul inside me and wanted to suck it out—but I could not allow that.

I heard Kurex neighing again from across the great divide. The sound momentarily distracted me. The HellSpawn surged forward in my arms and my feet slid against the rocky scree. Suddenly I felt myself slipping, falling into the yawning black pit of the Abyss—a place from which there is no escape.

The situation was desperate—without my true form I was doomed. I shouted a word of power that illuminated the entire vast cavern for a brief instant, like a flash of lightning. And then my suit ripped away, as did my human form. I felt myself growing and changing—becoming what I once was, what I was always meant to be.

My true form emerged at last.

* * * * *

Gwendolyn

I don’t know how long I lay there in the dark crying. I couldn’t understand what had happened—how things had gone bad so quickly.

I’ll tell you what happened, whispered a spiteful little voice in my head. You were stupid enough to trust a demon—to even let yourself care for one—and now you’re paying the price. You’ve lost your virginity and with it, half your power. Hope you enjoy the rest of your life as half a witch—half of what you could have been if you’d been a little smarter.

I tried to push the mean little voice to the back of my head. I could still feel Laish’s hot seed leaking out of me and I closed my thighs tightly, wanting to erase the feeling, to deny his betrayal.

Then a new thought occurred to me—what if Laish had left me for good? Would I be able to close the door I’d left open on the edge of the Abyss myself? And once I did, would I ever get out of Hell and back home? What if I was lost down here, wandering in the darkness forever? Or what if the HellSpawn—

Kurex’s distressed neighing pulled me out of my morbid thoughts. I sat bolt upright in bed. What was going on?

Pulling on the green silk robe, I belted it hurriedly around my waist and jumped out of bed. I was about to leave the tent when, as an afterthought, I grabbed the thrak. I didn’t like the feel of it in my hand—it almost seemed to be thrumming as though it sensed something outside the tent—something bad. But I felt better with some protection—even an evil-ass knife—than nothing at all.

Clutching the knife, I ran out of the tent. I saw that the road under the Sunless Sea—which had appeared to go on and on forever the last time I had looked at it—now ended abruptly. The underwater passageway had opened out into a vast cavern which housed the Abyss.

The last time I had seen that horrible, black, bottomless pit, it had been crawling with long, slimy dark tentacles. This time there was nothing coming out of it. But high up, on the far edge along a steep slope, I could see something happening. There was a scuffle going on beside long sliver of light. Clearly the light was coming from the door which I had left open—a door which only I could close, according to Laish.

Speaking of Laish, was that him, struggling with something on the edge of the Abyss? Yes, it was. And the something he was fighting had no head—only long, yellow teeth and a black, oozing body. It clawed at him relentlessly, trying to get a hold on him—trying to draw him into its deadly mouth. The struggle was hard to make out in the murky, diffused light coming from the Sunless Sea but my eyes were used to the darkness and I was sure of what I was seeing.

As I watched, my heart in my mouth, Laish’s foot slipped on the loose rocks and gravel. To my horror, he started to slide into the Abyss.

“No! Oh, no!” I gasped, running forward. I didn’t think what I could possibly do if I got to him—how could I hope to have any chance against the HellSpawn now that I had only half my strength and powers? But the thought didn’t occur to me—I only knew I couldn’t let him fall—couldn’t let him go. Not now…not yet.

But before I could get three steps, Laish shouted a word of power that echoed through the whole cavern. There was a brilliant flash of light and then he was gone—at least, the Laish I knew was gone.

In his place was a being that had to be ten or twelve feet tall. Or I thought he was—it was hard to tell because he was no longer standing on the ground. Vast, black feathered wings beat the air, causing a small hurricane around him. His skin was dark gray like marble and his eyes were flames—literally flames—in his face. In his hand was a fiery sword as long as I was tall and his hair was a wreath of fire—burning waves that moved and shifted around his face as he hovered in place.


With one slice of the fiery sword, the HellSpawn was cut into two writhing pieces. The being that Laish had become threw them down into the Abyss, still quivering and bleeding black, oily goo.