Drop Dead Demons (32 page)

“We don’t even know where it leads,” Jayden protested.

“Has…several exits.” I hissed air through clenched teeth, sorted through the blistering inferno of information. “Closest one…tunnel…near the falls.”

“Babe knows what she’s talking about.”

“It’s old!” Jayden sputtered. “The mechanics could break down. We’d be trapped.”

Inside my head was a minefield. Every new sound setting off a fresh explosion, sucking all energy. My eyes squeezed shut. Something tickled my nose. I rubbed it away and my fingers came back with blood. Not the best sign. But better than leaking brain matter.

“I don’t care.” Ayden was losing patience. “Get the guys. We’re leaving.”

“Please stop.” My gut twisted. I wrenched away to fall on my knees and throw up.

At least I didn’t pass out. Although that might be preferable to what felt like an axe-wielding psycho running around in my head shredding soft brain tissue. Or Ayden slapping my cheeks as he held my face. His expression vacillated between fear and fury.

“Her eyes are crazy red.” 

My heart accelerated. “Changing color? I’m transforming?” I pinched my face. “Into what?”

“No,” Ayden said soothingly, brushing aside my hand and caressing my cheek. “I meant they’re bloodshot. Relax. Take this.” Ayden pushed something through my lips. A mint. Then he lifted me in his arms and kissed my forehead. “We’re getting you out of here.”

I started to rest my head on his chest, but his shirt was wet. And he winced with every step.

“What’s wrong?” My mouth ran dry. Suddenly my pain didn’t matter. “Oh, God.”

“It’s nothing,” he murmured.

No, it was something. Soaking through his T-shirt.

Blood. And lots of it.

“You’re hurt.” I squirmed. “Ayden, stop! Put me down.”

He dropped on one knee. Then, quite unceremoniously, he dropped me. But I couldn’t complain. He couldn’t hear me if I did.

He’d collapsed onto the floor.

“Ayden!” My hands hovered, afraid to touch him.

Blake rushed over and with one yank, ripped Ayden’s bloody shirt up the middle.

My breath sucked in.

His chest was peppered with red welts, some black in the center, not so much bleeding as oozing. Jagged purple lines ran in between the welts, like some macabre version of connect-the-dots.

Jayden skidded to his knees, then gingerly inspected the injuries.

“This can’t be.” His lips thinned. “It looks like he’s…burned.”

“When the lava came out of the portal it splattered,” I said. “Maybe it hit him.”

“Even lava doesn’t bother him. Nothing with heat does.”

“Are you sure? Maybe it’s special lava because it’s from the Waiting World because he was fine when we were melting the chains after he stopped my fingers from zapping—” A cold realization stabbed through my chest. I flopped on my butt. “Oh, crap. It was me. I-I-I did this.” I scooted away.

“Babe, calm down.”

I pointed at Ayden, my hands shaking like I held a jackhammer. “When he knocked me aside to cut the connection, the explody stuff was zapping from my fingers and must have hit him in the chest. But I never thought…he didn’t say…I’m so sorry.” I crawled back over and smoothed the hair from his forehead. “Ayden. Wake up. Please.”

He was hot, starting to sweat, shivering. And even if I didn’t see the look in Jayden’s eyes, it was clear we didn’t have much time. 

We rushed down the tunnel leading from Lizzy’s room and found the latticed metal elevator where, like a size-ten foot in a size-five sneaker, we squeezed in. Logan climbed up and hung from the side, moving his hands in odd motions. Blake was cradling Ayden like his wounded friend was made of fragile, paper-thin glass, and without a word spoken, the rest of us gave him as much room as we could.

Face smooshed against the metal, I punched buttons on the control panel before Sally Security had even finished asking me to, “Enter destination request.”

When I felt the weight of questioning looks as to how I knew the proper code, I avoided eye contact because, hey, I had no friggin’ clue. I was running on knowledge that came from a place I couldn’t explain. If I was wrong, we’d find out soon enough.

And they could kill me then.  

With a c
lang,
jolt, and belch of oil, metal, and something acrid — probably terror — we started a crickity-rickety journey up, riding in silence thick as C-4 and just as volatile.

I was an emotional schizoid.

Sometimes I felt empty. Gutted, hollow, and numb. Then I’d look at Ayden, vacillating in and out of consciousness, and a zillion icicles, honed to razor sharp points, stabbed mercilessly through my body, leaving me cold and writhing in nerve-shattering pain. Then I’d wipe sweat from my forehead with shaky hands and realize I was still hyped-up from whatever the sanctuary did to me. Or I could be flooded with guilt — and shock — over putting Ayden at death’s door.  

Burning the Hex Boy who was
unburnable.

No one was saying it, but they had to hate me at that moment. Know I did. And I got the niggling feeling that they might even be a bit scared of me.

Hey, I scared myself.

Could be why my breathing became halted. Then energy rippled through my insides, splashing with violent fury like a stormy sea on jagged cliffs. My hands prickled, and when I looked down, they started to glow. I quickly stuffed them in my pockets.

A wind swirled around the cramped space and Logan blurted, “My powers are back,” just as the elevator jerked to a stop, the door opening to let us stumble out into a tunnel.

“Finally!” Jayden flung a few ice blades then hustled to Blake and checked Ayden’s injuries. 

With the sound of gears turning, the elevator simply disappeared, covered over by weathered stone, smooth but for a small, inconspicuous carving of a double spiral.

In the distance, we could hear the thundering water from the falls, and using the hologram tunnel map on their phones, Logan and Matthias led us out. I jogged on the other side of Blake, hands hidden, afraid to touch Ayden, as I watched Jayden work. Eyes a murky blue-green, he hovered his hands over Ayden’s chest wounds.

“Jayden,” I swallowed hard. “I’m so sorry. What can I do? I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

“The burns appear superficial.” Jayden’s words were clipped, cold, sterile. He frowned. “Other than he
shouldn’t
be burned, they’re normal and not life-threatening. Certainly wouldn’t cause him to react like this.” As one hand ran over Ayden’s shoulder, Jayden jerked as if bitten. “Oh, no.” 

My stomach lurched. “What?”

“Shh!” Jayden placed a palm on Ayden’s neck then, with an increasingly grim expression, he moved it gently along Ayden’s collarbone and over the wounded shoulder. “It’s not the burns.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “It’s the toxin.” 

My brows knitted. “What toxin?”   

“In his blood!” Jayden blurted then seemed surprised by his outburst and reeled his composure back in. “I can read the plasma composition. It’s tainted. Point of origin is the spear puncture.”

I rasped, “The blade was poisoned?” Jayden nodded gravely, and I nearly collapsed. It wasn’t me. But my tiny sense of relief lasted only an instant. “You can fix him, right? With your watery powers. Just suck it out!”

“It’s not that easy.” Jayden’s nostrils flared while his hands worked on the wound, eyes swirling brighter as a pale vapor lifted off Ayden. “I am extracting as much as I can, but a fatal dose has already infiltrated his blood stream.” He flinched when Ayden’s body spasmed. The vapor cloud dissipated. “That’s as much as I dare. Now the best I can do is slow his blood flow to diminish the toxin’s acceleration through his system.”

At the word “fatal,” my mind nearly shut down.  I blinked back tears. “That will buy us time to save him?”

Jayden nodded. “The faster we get him to the lab at the house, the better. Blake
move!
”

We hit turbo-boost and soon raced into the cave illuminated by the glow-in-the-dark algae which put us in sight of the backside of the waterfall. The roar was deafening. Mist rose from the pounding waters and took on the eerie green glow.

Jayden burst into a dead run. 

I stumbled when the vision hit. It was quick. Tristan pulled me upright. I recovered and ran forward, yelling, “Jayden stop!” but it was too late.

He parted the waters of the falls and walked right into an ambush.

I sprinted after Jayden anyway, screaming things like “Stop!” and “Ambush!” but the crashing din of the waterfall drowned any warnings. Logan caught my arm and shoved me back into Tristan who, despite my struggles, kept me in place as the white-haired wonder drew his bow and fired.

The arrow missiled for Jayden’s back, aimed to sever his spine in two.

What the heck?!

Clueless to the danger, Jayden barreled toward the opening of parted water. From Matthias’s hands, shadow whips snapped out. They licked through the air and wrapped around Jayden’s waist then he was yanked off his feet and hauled backwards into the cave.

The arrow sailed over the fallen Jayden and headed directly at the leader of ambush. 

Rose.

Standing just outside the falls, wearing a smug smile, he tilted his head, showing mild interest in, but zero concern for, the arrow rocketing toward him. He didn’t even attempt to move as the arrow speared his heart.

Kind of. 

When the arrow hit his chest, Rose’s form simply wavered like smoke from a chimney, and the arrow passed harmlessly through, dissipating in a pale white puff as it buried into the sandy beach behind him.

“Evening, boys. Aurora.” Rose shimmered into a more solid looking shape standing with feet planted wide, a thumb hooked into the front pocket of dark jeans that were tucked into knee-high leather boots. His shirt was a white, billowy affair, cuffed at the wrists with an open V-neck that showed off his tanned, toned chest. His long waves of golden hair were pulled back and tied in a black ribbon. Very much the pirate.

He reached out a leather-gloved hand. “Find what we need?”

“Call off your demons,” I said. My vision had shown six winged monsters perched on the waterfall above and seven more landlubbers lurking just out of the line of sight.

Blake’s head bobbled. “What demons?”

“Love to,” Rose shrugged and folded his arms. “But if I do that, you’ll come out and stop searching.”

“Who said we didn’t find it?”

We all looked at Ayden who had spoken despite being barely conscious as he leaned against Blake.

“Got it…right here.” Ayden’s voice had a weird gurgle. He hacked a wet cough.

“Excellent.” Rose held out a hand.

Jayden practically ripped apart his brother’s clothes. “Where is it?”

“Have him,” Ayden wheezed a long rattling breath, “come in here and get it.”

Jayden clutched his twin’s shirt. “You don’t have time.”

“Very…dangerous.” Ayden spoke slowly whether for emphasis or because he was deteriorating. “He couldn’t,” he winced, “get in. Tricked us.”

“In where? Tricked how?” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. Blake, can you sense the stone on him?

Blake whispered, “He doesn’t have one,” but set Ayden down and helped Jayden rifle through his pockets.

Rose whistled. “I’m waiting. And I’m not a patient man. I do hate assassinating anyone before breakfast. Tends to ruin the appetite.”

“Don’t…go…out.” Ayden struggled to get up, but lost the battle and flopped back. “Not…human.”

“I get it.” With trembling hands, Tristan pushed me behind him. “Rose can’t get in anywhere.”

“Aurora’s house,” Logan said, readjusting his hold on the bow and arrow and aiming directly at Rose. “And only in the school after the shields went down.”

The boys were solving some puzzle I couldn’t comprehend.

Jayden moved in front of his fallen brother. “He never intended to break into our home.”

“He bloody wanted us to catch him outside.” Matthias stared at Rose with awe. And a growing anxiety.

“Cat suit was a brilliant distraction on my part. You boys are so repressed.” Rose’s grin lit up the night. “Took you all long enough. And now you’re one man down. Tsk, tsk.” Pink smoke curled from his fingers. His eyes began to glow.

“Everyone back in the sanctuary!” Matthias shoved us back.

I stayed put. “Ayden will die if we don’t get him help.”

Tristan tugged on my arm. “Rose isn’t human.”

“Then what is he?” I snapped.

Out on the beach, a tall, trench-coated man emerged from the mist, arms slightly away from his sides, hands open, like he was about to engage in an old-fashioned gunfight in the dusty main street of a tumbleweed town.

Beneath the lowered brim of a tattered fedora, he had the profile of a hatchet. Harsh angles, sharp lines. Pale eyes glittered so cold they looked like they’d been chipped off a glacier.

He stepped alongside Rose. A gun held steady in his hand, the muzzle pressed firmly against the non-human’s golden hair.

“He’s a god,” the man said.

Then he pulled the trigger.