He nodded as we entered the waiting room. Taking the elevator filled me with so much dread I thought I’d hurl, but there were no doors to stairwells. Nothing. We had no other choice.
“Come on.” Matthew slipped into the elevator, his face pale. “We need to prepare for anything once these doors are open.”
Daemon nodded. “How is everyone?”
“Not feeling very good,” Dawson answered, his free hand open and closing. “It’s the damn onyx. I don’t know how much is left in me.”
“What the hell was up with Simon?” Daemon turned on Blake as the elevator pitched into motion. “He barely seemed affected by the onyx.”
Blake shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I don’t know.”
Beth was babbling on about something, but I couldn’t pay attention. The ball of dread was building in my stomach, spreading into my limbs. How could Blake not know? I felt Daemon shift beside me, and then his lips brushed my forehead.
“It’s going to be okay. We’re almost out of here. We got this,” Daemon whispered into my ear, and more tension seeped out of him, out of me. Then he smiled. It was a real one, so wide and beautiful that my own lips curved to meet his. “I promise, Kitten.”
I closed my eyes briefly, soaking in his words and hanging onto them. I needed to believe in them because I was seconds away from freaking out. I had to hold it together. We were a tunnel away from freedom.
“Time?” Blake asked.
Matthew checked his watch. “Two minutes.”
The doors released with a suction-cup sound and the long narrow tunnel appeared, thankfully, beautifully empty and devoid of anymore freak-me-out surprises. Blake and his bundle were the first out, his strides long and quick. Daemon and I took up the flank with Matthew in front of Dawson and Beth, just in case something happened.
“Stay behind me,” Daemon said.
Nodding, I kept my eyes peeled. The tunnel was a blur, we were moving that fast. The pain in my leg increased with each step. As Blake reached the middle door, he shifted Chris to over his shoulder and entered in the key. The door rattled and then slid open.
Blake stood there, swathed in the darkness of the encroaching night. In his arms, the motionless Luxen was pale and seemed barely alive, but he’d be free in seconds. Blake had finally gotten what he wanted. Our eyes met from across the distance. There was something churning in those green flecks.
A great sense of foreboding took root and spread rapidly. Immediately, I reached for the opal around my neck and all I felt was the chain the piece of obsidian hung from.
Blake’s lips slowly curved up at the corners.
My heart stuttered and then my stomach fell so fast I thought I’d be sick. That smile… That smile felt like a big gotcha. A surge of unbridled terror turned my skin icy cold. But it couldn’t be. No. No. No. It couldn’t be…
Blake cocked his head to the side as he stepped back. He opened his free hand. The thin, white string unraveled, slipping through his fingers. The piece of opal dangled there, in his grasp. “Sorry,” he said, and he truly sounded sorry. It was unbelievable. “It had to be this way.”
“Son of a bitch!” roared Daemon, breaking free from me. He launched forward, going after Blake in a way I knew would end in bloody violence.
Heat flared between my br**sts, unexpected and just as terrifying as an army of DOD soldiers. I reached down, yanking the obsidian from my shirt. It glowed red.
Daemon drew up short, snarling.
The darkness behind Blake thickened and stretched out, creeping into the entrance of the tunnel. The blackness seeped over the walls. Lamps sparked and went out. The shadows dropped onto the floor, rising up all around Blake. Not touching him. Not stopping him. The smoke formed pillars at first and then human forms. Their skin was like midnight oil, slick and shiny.
Arum formed all around Blake—seven of them. All dressed the same. Dark pants. Dark shirts. Eyes shielded behind sunglasses. One by one, they smiled.
They ignored Blake.
They let him go.
Blake disappeared into the night as the Arum flew forward.
Daemon met the first one head on, his human form flickering out as he slammed the Arum back into the wall. Dawson shoved Beth to the side as he closed line on an advancing Arum, taking him down.
Reaching down, Matthew grabbed a slender shard of Obsidian, sharpened into a fine point. He spun around, slamming it deep into the belly of the nearest Arum.
The Arum drew up, losing its human form as it rose to the low ceiling. It hung there for a second and then shattered as if it were made of nothing more than frail bone.
I snapped out of it.
Knowing that none of them, including me, would be able to rely on the Source for very long, this would be a hand to hand kind of combat. I yanked the obsidian around my neck and the chain snapped just as one of the Arums reached me. I saw my pale face in its dark sunglasses and searched for the Source inside me.
He reached forward, and whitish-red light erupted from me, throwing the Arum back and knocking it flat on its ass. The energy rushed out like an overflowing stream. The onyx had lessened the blow, and the Arum was on his feet as Daemon took out the one he was fighting. Another explosion of black smoke rocked the corridor.
The Arum I knocked down was in front of me, sunglasses gone. His eyes were the palest blue, the color of the winter sky. They were just as cold as Simon’s, if not more.
I took a step back, my hand clenching the piece of obsidian.
The Arum smiled, and then he twisted to the side, swinging his leg out and catching my bad one. I yelped as my leg caved. I started to go down, but he caught me around the neck, lifted me off my feet and into the air. Beyond him, I saw Daemon spin, saw the anger building in him, saw the Arum rising up behind him.