Rhyn's Redemption Read online

  Katie’s gaze dropped to Deidre’s hands. They looked normal, but so had Gabriel’s. Andre had warned her about the Gabriel-demon. She looked around, wanting to believe the phantom would reappear if it sensed she was in danger. The Gabriel-demon had appeared distant, as if uncomfortable acting out its role. Deidre had been open and warm towards her, like a real human.

  Katie touched the roots ensnaring the sleeping woman’s ankle. The mess baffled her, as if the roots themselves had reached out to grab Deidre’s ankles instead of her slipping and stumbling into them. The gnarly roots were twisted and thick, wrapped too tightly for her to pry them apart.

  She started to saw at them with the knife. The wood was thick and wet. She shifted closer, gasping when the root healed the cuts she’d just made. Furious at the latest trick from the Immortal underworld, Katie sawed furiously at the root, until her arm ached. She’d barely made a dent when she switched arms.

  The cut healed itself in seconds.

  “Shit!” she shouted and flung the knife into the nearby brush. “This placed is cursed!”

  Deidre awoke and looked at her then at her ankles. Katie was caught by the other woman’s eyes. They were large and turquoise, like the shallows surrounding the Caribbean Sanctuary.

  “It’s not working. The trees keep repairing the damage I’m doing,” Katie said. “I’m not sure what to do.”

  Deidre grunted and visibly tugged at her feet.

  “Damned magic …” Katie drifted off, looking at the roots anew. “Magic.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Here, eat these. I’ve got an idea,” Katie said. She handed the pale woman a food and water cube and popped two of her own. Standing, she waded into the brush where she’d thrown the knife. It glinted in the morning light. Katie swiped it, glad the trees didn’t have a taste for metal as well as Immortal sustenance.

  “What’s your idea?” Deidre called after her.

  “It probably won’t work. If you’re with me long, you’ll find I have the worst luck ever. But it’s worth a try,” Katie answered then muttered, “Not like I got anything else to lose.” She made her way back to Deidre with the knife and knelt.

  Katie pulled up the sleeve of her soaked sweater and nicked her arm. She set down the knife and squeezed out a few drops of blood, watching as they landed on the roots. Then she sat back and held her breath.

  “What are you doing?” Deidre asked.

  Katie was quiet, willing the tree roots to be vulnerable to her immunity blood. She hacked at the root again and paused. The area where she’d dripped blood stayed cut while the area around it healed.

  “I’m getting you out of here,” she said, thrilled. With a grimace, she sliced the palm of her hand and smeared the blood on the root.

  “You’re insane,” Deidre breathed. “How are you doing that?”

  “I don’t know. It’s my curse and sometimes, my blessing. I’m immune to young magic,” Katie explained. “I assume this tree isn’t that old.”

  “Doesn’t it hurt?”

  Katie nodded and sawed at the root, dripped more blood, then sawed again. She forced herself to continue even as she grew tired. Sticky blood covered the hilt of the dagger, her pants, the root, Deidre’s shoe and pants leg. Katie kept on, uncertain what might happen if she stopped for a break.

  “You don’t even know me,” Deidre said, her surprise clear.

  “I’m going to be like Rhyn. I’m going to take care of you, because it’s the honorable thing to do,” Katie said.

  “Maybe you should become the protector of humanity.”

  “Not a job I want. I’d be happy living with Rhyn in some cave like hermits. We could raise our …” Katie’s hands faltered with her voice. She cleared her throat and focused hard on cutting her newfound ally free.

  “I hope we’re not dead,” Deidre said. “You deserve better.”

  “Rhyn deserves better. I think I got what was coming to me for being as selfish as my bitchy sister.”

  The roots around Deidre’s left foot snapped free. Katie shoved it aside before it could change its mind and started on the roots around her right foot. Deidre moved her foot with a look of pain. She rubbed her ankle, and Katie cut her arm again.

  By midmorning, Deidre was free. Katie grimaced as she wrapped the dismembered sleeves of her sweater around her wounds. Blood soaked the sweater quickly, and she held it over her head. Even before she stood, she felt woozy. Deidre tested herself and limped a few feet. Katie steadied her breathing to keep from dropping to her knees.

  “Where were you headed when you found me?” Deidre asked.

  “I’m not sure. I had a guide, but he … they left me,” Katie said. “I was told to walk in an eastern direction.”

  “I came from the east. There’s a fortress that way.”

  “Then that’s where we’re going.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes. I think that’s where Death is. I think that’s my way out,” Katie said, not fully convinced but unwilling to admit it. She had no other option. “You in?”

  Deidre smiled faintly and nodded.

  “Is it far?”

  “Maybe a day away.”

  Katie’s mind went to Gabe’s words about needing to leave before the seventh day. It was day six. She wasn’t sure they’d make his timeline – or even why it still mattered that she reached wherever he was taking her. There had to be something to what he told her, and she wished once more he’d told her why.

  She was done being at the mercy of Immortals. The first Immortal, Death, she’d tell that would probably be the last, but she was done with this game.

  Chapter Eleven

  The entire fortress was empty. Rhyn ducked his head into a salon the size of half Kris’s castle. He and Gabe had reached the gleaming marble palace at the center of the underworld just after dawn only to find it unguarded and missing its key occupant.

  “This is just weird,” Gabe said again from down the hall. “She’s planning something.”

  “A trap for her least favorite demon and assassin?”

  “Trust me, if she wasn’t curious about you, you’d be dead-dead. She probably finds all this entertaining.”

  Rhyn heard the note of pain in the death-dealer’s voice. In a week’s time, Gabe had gone from quietly confident to troubled to lost. The death-dealer was struggling with himself, a feeling Rhyn knew well.

  “If she’s not here, where is she?” he asked.

  “Out tormenting others.”

  “In the underworld?”

  “Yeah.” Gabriel fell quiet for a moment, looking around with a frown. Death’s palace felt much like Hell had to Rhyn. Something about it tugged at his power.

  “At the stream … “ Rhyn started, watching Gabe carefully.

  The death-dealer grimaced. “That was her. Toying with you. Testing you.”

  “Could she be fighting demons?”

  “Her guards are gone, which means they’re off tracking demons. Death is unpredictable, but if I were to guess, she’s somewhere in the underworld.”

  “Hiding?”

  “No. Toying with someone else.”

  “Not Katie. She’d have to kill her,” Rhyn said.

  “Not us, not Katie, not the demons. That leaves other Immortals. Looks like we’re not the only ones here.”

  Rhyn thought of Kiki, suspecting his brother went to Kris. He wondered who Kris sent after him to make sure he didn’t follow through on his threat to confront Death.

  “We only have today,” he said. “Let’s find them.”

  “You go. I’ll wait here for her. She always comes home,” Gabe said.

  “Gabe, it’s not safe for you here.”

  “My fate is sealed, Rhyn. I’ve got nothing to lose now. If she comes back, I can distract her, give you until midnight.”

  Rhyn looked hard at his friend, sensing what the death-dealer didn’t say. He’d known Gabe was likely going to suffer worse than any of them, once he faced Death’s wrath. There was
regret mixed in with Gabriel’s resignation. They’d known each other long enough for Rhyn to suspect Death would finally succeed in what she’d been doing to Gabe all these years: She was about to win the battle to crush his soul.

  “There’s always hope, Gabe,” Rhyn said. “I’ll find a way to help you. I swear it.”

  “I’m beyond help, Rhyn. I’ve always believed you could be all that Kris and Andre and your father were not. Your half-demon nature makes you better prepared than all of them combined. I think that’s your fate, to follow in your father’s footsteps.”

  “Kris might disagree. Oh, and probably every other Immortal out there.”

  “Katie knows it. I know it. I’m ready for my fate. Do what you were born to do, Rhyn, and don’t think twice about me.”

  “I spent years in Hell for a brother who hates me. I’ll do whatever it takes to free my only friend from Death, Gabe,” Rhyn said firmly. He slapped Gabe on the arm. “You need to shave. You look like shit.”

  The death-dealer smiled faintly. Rhyn trotted away from him, out of the palace and into the jungle. He suspected freeing Katie from Death would be easier than freeing Gabe from Death. There was more at stake for her if she lost Gabe.

  Thunder cracked overhead. Rhyn had ignored the rain, accustomed to being miserable. Hell was either broiling or freezing, and the Alps were just as cold. The underworld’s chilled rain didn’t compare.

  He looked up instinctively, sensing something different about this thunder. It didn’t sound like the rumbling thunder he’d heard in the mortal world. It sounded like an explosion in the sky. The jungle canopy blocked his view, so he leapt up to catch the branch of the nearest tree. He scaled the tree quickly, stopping only when he broke through the layers of leaves. More tiny explosions came, and he twisted to see what they were.

  A portal had opened overhead, back towards what Gabe had called the Lake of Souls. Demons fell from the sky, some changing into their winged forms while others simply fell. It was too far for them to survive if they fell, and he estimated half of them were likely dead on impact.

  The other half numbered in the hundreds. The winged demons hovered around the portal and then took off in separate directions, swooping low above the jungle.

  Rhyn scampered down the tree and fell far enough to knock his breath out. Demons flew overhead, unable to see through the canopy. He froze, watching them circle then leave, and stood, catching his breath. Fear penetrated him, colder than the rain. Katie was vulnerable. Gabe was vulnerable.

  Death alone could drive the invaders from her world.

  As Darkyn had said, the underworld tempered his Immortal magic, but Rhyn felt the demon power broiling behind the constraints, seeking a way out of him. He was sticking to his plan, though he no longer had time to find Death. He was going to try to make her come to him. She’d know where Katie was, and Rhyn could find her before more demons closed in.

  He knelt on the ground and closed his eyes, seeking out the writhing darkness of his demon side. If the demons had the power to transform and fly, he could access his demon powers, too, even if the Immortal side of him was bound by Death’s underworld.

  “Berries,” Toby commanded the tree before him.

  The tree obliged and lowered one of the low hanging branches to Toby’s level. He plucked a few of the red, tart berries and popped them in his mouth.

  “How’d you do that?” Ully asked.

  Toby hunched his shoulders. He’d wandered far enough away from camp that he’d hoped to get some food before running from Ully, who was still sleeping. The angel memories convinced him that Ully’s strange comments and the trees attempt to combat him indicated Ully really was a demon. Toby turned slowly to face the scientist, whose hands and body had begun to transform back into its demon form. The Ully-demon hadn’t yet realized it.

  “Angel memories. This is where old angels go before they die,” Toby said. He huddled deeper into his coat, more than the rain chilling him. The Ully-demon still wore Ully’s face, but the rest of his body had grown bony and taller. Toby couldn’t help wondering when Ully had been swapped for a demon, but it had to have been before they left Hell.

  It now made sense how Ully had been able to free them and talk Jared into letting them go. Toby had been too excited to find their escape too easy at the time, but now, he realized it was … weird. He’d failed again. He couldn’t even escape on his own.

  “This way,” he said and started towards Death’s palace.

  Thunder cracked overhead, and Toby looked up. Ully ran into him as the angel stopped, and they both stared at the sky. He thought he saw something in the sky, but the trees blocked it.

  “Let’s keep going,” Ully said.

  “I want to see what it is,” Toby said. He approached a tree. “Branch! Up!”

  The tree lowered a branch to him, and he wrapped his arms around it. It was warm and writhing, and one small branch wrapped around him to keep him secure as it shifted him upwards. Toby broke through the treetops and gasped.

  Demons flew towards him.

  “Down, down, down!” he squawked. “Down!”

  The branch lowered him so fast, his stomach turned. Toby scampered off the branch and stared upwards, wondering how Death could allow the demons into her domain. He looked around wildly, expecting them to leap from his surroundings.

  “What’s wrong?” Ully asked. By his darkened gaze, he knew.

  “Tree!” Toby shouted. “Help!”

  The Ully-demon launched towards him. The tree snatched Toby and lifted him to safety, and Toby dangled far enough over Ully’s head that the demon couldn’t reach him. As he watched, the Ully-demon transformed into its natural form, a creature of wings, talons, and teeth longer than Toby’s fingers.

  “Throw me!” Toby whispered, clawing at the tree as the demon shook out his wings. “Now!”

  The tree obeyed. Toby bit back a yell as he was launched over the treetops into the sky, in the direction of the Lake of Souls. Another tree branch caught him, and he struggled to orient himself. He heard the sounds of pursuit but was stuck upside down. A blur of wings and darkness caught his attention.

  “Throw me!” he cried again.

  He flew through the air, drawing the attention of nearby demons in midflight. He saw them shift directions and dart towards him just before he dipped beneath the jungle canopy again.

  “Don’t let them through!”

  The branches flung upwards, snatching the legs and wings of the demons. Toby heard a demon shriek as its wings were torn from its body. The tree lowered Toby to the ground. He looked up once more, turned and ran through the jungle, leaving the trees to fight off the demons.

  Katie was close. Toby could sense her. He ignored the branches whipping his face and the brambles tripping him. Instead, he just ran, the screams of demons in his ears.

  Even the thunder of the underworld sounded weird. Katie glanced towards the sky, silently cursing the rain. She made her way over a fallen log and waited for Deidre before continuing.

  “I hope we’re going the right way still,” she said. “I’m not good at directions.”

  “The jungle looks the same everywhere,” Deidre agreed. “But I think this is right. It’s still easterly. I think.”

  More thunder boomed. Katie wondered what other kinds of storms the underworld might have. Would it rain something other than black water? With her luck, it’d rain bugs, like the beetle nest she skirted.

  “Watch out. These things will probably take a leg off,” she said, pointing to the nest.

  Deidre paused beside the bubbling nest of beetles the size of her hand. Katie watched as she picked up one, peered at it and then flung it. Deidre giggled.

  “We call those beetle bombs where I’m from,” she admitted. “I guess that’s the kind of thing you do when you’re bored.”

  Katie smiled, amused despite the rain, thunder and bugs. The woman was as unique as she’d claimed to be, at once easily entertained and melancholy. Katie couldn
’t quite keep up with Deidre’s odd mixture of emotions, but she pitied the woman, who seemed more lost in her own world than anything.

  The sound of something screaming wiped the smile from Deidre’s face. Katie turned to face the direction from which the sound came. It wasn’t a bird, and it wasn’t human. The single voice was joined by several, and Katie grabbed Deidre’s hand.

  “We have to keep going,” she said, hurrying forward. “I don’t know what that is, but it’s close.”

  “Demons,” Deidre whispered.

  “Don’t let all my talk scare you. Let’s just um, run for awhile!” Katie said and took off.

  Deidre was close on her heels. They navigated the jungle as fast as they could, catching themselves against trees as they slid through slippery piles of leaves and over fallen branches. Katie ran until she was breathless. Deidre kept on running, and Katie pushed her body forward.

  Suddenly, someone launched from the trees. Deidre stopped. Katie smashed into her and knocked them both to the ground. Katie rolled and pushed herself up, missing the look exchanged between Deidre and the newcomer.

  “Toby!” Katie exclaimed. “What’re you doing here?”

  The young angel’s face was streaked with blood from where branches had struck him. He was pale and terrified – and staring in shock at Deidre.

  “Toby,” Katie said again, stepping forward. Her eyes went to his hands. He didn’t have demon hands. “It’s okay. She’s a friend.”

  “Mama,” he managed and flung himself into her arms. Katie grunted and caught him, hugging him to her.

  “Toby, what’re you doing here?”

  “Mama, there are demons everywhere. They opened a portal in the sky and are just flying and flying, hundreds of them!” Toby’s voice rose in panic.

  “How did you get here?” she demanded.

  “I wanted to protect you. Rhyn and Gabe came to find you, but I knew I could find you faster, so I came with a shapeshifter.”

  Katie bit back the words she wanted to say. Toby was too small to protect anyone, and she couldn’t help feeling panic stir again at the thought that now he – and Deidre – were now as vulnerable as she was to the demons. The thought of Rhyn being close made her body warm from the inside out. Maybe, if she could find him …the cry of a demon overhead drew her attention.