Exiled - 01 (33 page)

I’d learned my father wasn’t everything I had thought he was, that the Circle was involved with creatures they were supposed to be fighting, and that not all demons were my enemies. It had been a hell of a month so far, everything happening so fast it seemed like one long day – or one really bad nightmare.

I froze in an instant when I heard screams, and a loud crash echoed around me. I knew then that even though the cave split into two paths, they met in one area. The route Tiki had taken must have been shorter and he was now in the middle of what should be my fight.

I ran forward, hoping it would be faster than turning around. We were outnumbered and our one advantage, surprise, was gone. I moved with all the grace and speed I could, waves of warm air moving over me as I went further into the volcano. I came around one last corner and slowed. The fighting had stopped. That couldn’t be a good thing.

Tiki wouldn’t have been able to handle my father and the Dark Brothers, so something was wrong. I tried to catch my breath and crept toward the opening. The corridor I’d followed opened into a huge space and the ceiling was higher than the light of the torches could reach. I peeked around to see Tiki; his face was bloody and the Dark Brothers were chaining his wrists to one of the stone walls.

Rayna’s body was laid on a long stone altar in the middle of the cave. If it wasn’t for the slight movement of her chest, I’d have thought she was dead. The wounds on her wrists and ankles had healed, but smears of dried blood clung to her pale skin. I was relieved the cuts hadn’t been made with silver.

The Brothers moved away from Tiki and stood in front of my father, forming a triangle around the stone altar. On the floor, they’d painted a symbol centered around the altar, and it was identical to the one in Rayna’s old house’s basement.

Viscous puddles of dark bluish liquid decorated the cave floor and half a dozen large bodies lay motionless around them. I was in awe that Tiki had managed to do that kind of damage in such a short time. If I had gotten here sooner to help, we might have had a chance to win this. I watched the bodies begin to dwindle, glowing a soft orange before turning to ash.

My pulse spiked as I was grabbed from behind and pushed against the cave wall. They twisted my wrist until I was forced to drop my sword. The huge hands lifted me off my feet with ease and carried me into full view of anyone in the cavern.

I looked down at the slate gray flesh holding my arms. The color alone could have identified the enemy as a demon, but the two fingers and one thumb confirmed this assessment.

It carried me across the cave and I saw that the floor dropped off halfway across the room. The demon held me over the edge of the drop. The red and orange lava below me glowed and roiled. Black smoke rose and wrapped around me, making it hard to breathe.

“No.” Riley’s voice came from behind us.

The demon grunted and turned, carrying me towards the altar.

“I’m so happy you thought to join us, son. I was disappointed to think we’d left you behind. It will be much more pleasant to share this experience with you,” Riley said.

“I’m here for Rayna, not to help you with your twisted plans.”

Riley laughed, and the deep bellow echoed throughout the cave. He gestured and the demon released me.

I turned to see a creature not much taller than I. A single blue eye in the center of a large oval head stared at me. A huge furry eyebrow framed the eye and a bald scalp reflected the light from the torches. The cyclops’ skin was rough looking, as though it was chiseled from stone. His lower jaw stuck out, his underbite was an orthodontist’s worst nightmare, and two sharp gray teeth stuck out over his upper lip. His wide chest and stomach were bare, muscled and veiny. Thankfully, he was covered from the waist down with an oversized loincloth. I absorbed all of him and did the one thing I could think of in that moment: I hit him.

My fist slammed into his jaw and the cyclops grunted, but faced me unfazed. My hand stung and I instantly regretted hitting him. He didn’t strike me back, only turned and stared at me with a furrowed brow and confused look.

My father’s laugh echoed around me. “Please, Chase. This isn’t home. These are pure blood demons, not the cross breeds you so easily associate yourself with.”

“Says the man who’s surrounded himself with them.”

“Indeed I have, but the difference is I use them to further what’s best for us. You go jumping through portals and traveling foreign lands on a quest not to save many, but only one, single, filthy half breed: one whose purpose since before her birth has been to unlock the doors to the worlds we’ve been denied.”

“That half breed is my friend, and I won’t let you hurt her.”

“You’ve always been a poor judge of character, Chase. She is a necessary sacrifice for the greater good. Once this is over and you see what we can accomplish, you will understand.”

“I can’t let you use her.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“We always have choices.” I took two quick steps and lunged at him. I soared over Rayna’s limp body, pulled a single dagger from its sheath and held it steady, aimed at my father’s throat. In that instant, my doubts were gone and I knew I could kill him.

I turned the blade as it neared his flesh, watching in slow motion as the tip pushed against his throat. The blade had nearly split his skin when magic engulfed me and I stopped moving.

I floated over Rayna’s body and my father had his head tilted back. The blade had pierced his neck, but caused no worse an injury than you could get shaving. A tiny bubble of blood formed on the tip of my blade and Riley’s eyes stared at me. For a moment, fear flickered through them.

The Dark Brothers had their arms extended. Their magic wrapped around me and kept me airborne. I sighed in disappointment.

Riley stepped back from my blade and brought a finger to his neck, touching the cut. The smile had been replaced with a furious expression.

“I’d hoped we’d move past this, son, but I see we’re going to have to do this the hard way.” He nodded to the Brothers, and at a flick of their wrists I was moving through the air. The only thing that stopped my body was the wall, and rock and dirt crumbled around me as I fell to the ground. By the time I could see, metal clasps attached to chains were being locked around my wrists.

Riley dabbed at his cut until he was satisfied the bleeding had stopped. He walked towards me and stopped just out of reach. He was an arrogant man, and the fact that he had left that space told me he was afraid of what I could do.

“What a waste of talent.” He sighed. “You aren’t willing to change your mind, are you?”

“Not a chance.”

“I can respect that, defiance until the last. You are more my son than I knew.”

Shock filled me. My father had never given me a compliment before. It was unfortunate that this was the context of his praise.

“Thanks?”

“It is for this reason alone I shall let you be the first to see the power I will hold. For you, like I, will not stop until we’ve won or died trying. I will give you that peace.”

All the emotion I’d felt following his ill-timed compliment vanished, leaving me empty.

“Now, let’s hope we’re done with interruptions,” Riley said. “Send more down the corridors; I want no more disturbances.”

A cyclops grunted and two more moved down the corridor and out of sight.

Riley moved to the altar, bowed his head and extended his arms towards the Brothers. They mirrored his actions and reformed the triangle, chanting in the same strange language as back on Earth, but the ritual was different now.

They weren’t trying to open a portal to another dimension, but trying to raise Ithreal, the god that created the Underworlds. The despair of failure tugged at me. Was this it? My thoughts were interrupted as the chanting stopped. The Dark Brothers brought their blades to Rayna’s feet and Riley brought his blade to her neck.

“Riley, don’t do this!” I shouted. I pulled at my chains, but they wouldn’t budge. “Dad!” I yelled again. Fear and anger stirred inside me and there was one thing left I could do: call upon my powers.

I didn’t wait for the magic to fill me up and course through my body. It didn’t move through my hands and flow from my fingers. I ripped it from my soul and let it explode over me.

The metal around my wrists started to smoke. The steel softened and molten drops trickled slowly down my arm. I didn’t let the pain stop me. I tugged on the chains, pulling at the softening metal, and as I pulled harder it started to stretch. I wrenched my wrists free of the hot metal and the broken clasps clanked as they hit the stone floor.

The sound alerted the demons and the cyclopes charged, but I didn’t stop. I burst between the first two demons and moved towards the altar. I pushed the fire out my hands and released bright blue and silver flames in a stream, but I was too late.

All three men pulled their blades across Rayna’s skin and blood flowed from her wounds and onto the stone floor.

The blood exploded as it hit the symbol and a barrier of magic came up around them all. Two of the cyclopes ran towards me, each with a fist raised. They made contact with either side of my face and my head snapped back as I dropped to the floor.

I didn’t stop to feel the pain. I thrust the fire from my hands and let it rush over them. They screamed and I could see blisters bursting on their faces. I pulled the magic back and watched blue ooze drip from their bodies as they tried to repair themselves.

I rose to my feet and pulled the single dagger I had left from its sheath. I leapt and stuck it in the neck of one demon and let it slide through to the front. Blue blood sprayed in every direction and poured down his chest. The cyclops dropped to its knees and collapsed on the floor. I reached down and pulled the blade through the back of its neck and watched it explode.

The other came from behind me and picked me up. Gray-blue hands tossed me against the wall with ease. I felt the pain only faintly through the adrenaline. I dropped the dagger and pushed my magic through my hands. It hurt more, tearing it out rather than letting it flow naturally, but I didn’t care.

Balls of flame rolled towards him and melted his skin. The cyclops screamed and I pushed harder, ignoring the burning along my own skin. Once the demonic screaming stopped, I let the magic recede and found the demon splayed on the floor in a pool of blue blood. His skin bubbled before his death rained down ashes over the sticky stone floor.

Two other cyclopes had approached and were on all fours whimpering, having been caught in the backlash of my flame. One had blue blood dripping from his face where the heat had burned away his flesh. The other’s skin was smoking and hanging loose from his body.

I picked up the dagger and brought it down on the back of one’s neck. I pushed down with all my weight, letting the blade snap his spine and slide with ease through the front of his throat. He screamed through gritted teeth and clawed at the ground until his head fell from his shoulders.

I could feel the heat of the last one’s skin as I wrapped my arm around his head. I squeezed it tight against my body and twisted until I heard the unpleasant snap of his spine. I let his body fall to the ground in a lump of smoking flesh.

I went to Tiki and grabbed the clasps around his wrists. Strength I’d never known snapped the metal cuffs with ease. His orange eyes were wide and his jaw hung slack. More cyclopes flooded in from the tunnels and he decided they were his job. I picked up my blade and went running full tilt for the altar.

A circle of blue light sprung up around Rayna and reached up into the darkness. The Brothers stepped away from the circle and handed Riley a large chalice. He circled Rayna and filled it with blood from each of her wounds.

I froze as the light surrounding Rayna vanished and all the torches went out.

I couldn’t see anything in the pitch black, but Riley chanted and I inched closer, following his voice. When I thought I was getting close, the torches burst into flame again.

When my eyes readjusted to the light, I could see my father with the chalice in hand, kneeling at Rayna’s feet. I stepped over the threshold of the symbol and the Brothers and my father looked up in shock.

“Maybe my magic can’t penetrate the circle, but I sure as hell can.”

I leapt forward and the Brothers reached out to stop me, but they were too late. I let my shoulder smash into my father as he brought the cup to his lips. He jerked and fell to the ground, the chalice rolling from his hand, spilling Rayna’s blood.

The cave rumbled as the blood hit the floor, and I wrapped my arms around Riley as we fell, but he turned and used my momentum against me. He thrust me to the side and I went head over heels, landing on my back. I jumped to my feet, but he was too fast. His hands hit my chest and sent me airborne again.