All those trees I’d collided with—maybe one of them could finally serve a purpose. If I could climb one, I might get high enough to jump for the bright doorway, or at least peer through it. The light called to me. The more I looked at the doorway, at that lovely, golden, singing light in so much darkness, the more I wanted to go through it.
I stretched out my arms, feeling for a trunk. Something grabbed both my wrists and yanked, hard, pulling me off my feet.
I screamed and tried to pull away, but I was held firmly. I reached for the light, wanting it, calling it to help me, but pressure built around me. I was squeezed by a vise of darkness. I called again to the light, like it could lift me up, carry me into itself. But it didn’t. The light grew distant and dimmed.
Darkness tightened around me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe; my screams stifled in my throat. Pressure crushed me.
A loud pop sounded, and the pressure let go. I stumbled forward, aware that something still gripped my wrists. There was light here, dim, but I could make out my feet on the forest floor. Another pair of feet faced mine. A man’s hands held me. “Let me go!” I shouted, pulling.
“Vic. Victory, look at me.”
My name—that voice. In all my life, there was only one person who’d ever called me Vic.
I looked up, into the face of my father.
20
DAD SMILED. HE DROPPED MY WRISTS, AND I THREW MY ARMS around him. He felt solid, warm, like when he was alive. Memories rushed back. When I was a little girl, jolted awake by a nightmare, and my father’s arms felt like a fortress against the terrors of the night. How he’d yell, “Come on, Vic!” at softball games when it was my turn at bat. When he’d taught me to drive the Jag, covering his eyes in mock terror as I pulled out into traffic. At my high school graduation, when he’d reached out to offer me a grown-up handshake and then caught me up in a proud hug instead.
Dad. It was Dad. He even smelled the same—spicy cologne laced with a hint of ink.
Dad put his arms around me, lightly at first and then tighter, until he hugged me back as though this one hug, all by itself, needed to make up for ten years of missed opportunities.
I was laughing and crying together, wetting his shoulder with tears. He smoothed a hand over my hair in a gesture so familiar, and so long missed, that I cried even harder.
He let go, stepped back, and took my hand. I hiccupped through my tears. “How did you find me? How did you pull me out of that darkness?”
“Shh,” he said, putting a finger on his lips. “This way. Then we can talk.”
I nodded, struggling to calm down, to get my crying under control. This weeping mess wasn’t the strong, competent demon fighter I wanted my father to see. Wiping my face with my free hand, I laced my fingers tightly in Dad’s and let him lead me.
For ten minutes, we moved silently through the dusky forest. I couldn’t stop looking at him. My father was exactly as I remembered him. Five foot ten with a thin, wiry build, his shoulders and elbows sharp. Brown, curly hair, a touch of gray at the temples. The face of a scholar: brown eyes, radiating smile lines, behind wire-rimmed glasses; a closely trimmed, salt-and-pepper beard. I remembered how he’d stroke his beard whenever he was thinking. The only thing that was different was his outfit, a medieval-looking tunic with leggings and tall, fawn-colored boots. I noted with surprise that I wore the same thing, only his was black and mine was white.
From time to time, Dad turned to study me, the look of wonder on his face mirroring my own. Each time, he smiled, then again pressed a finger to his lips.
The landscape we walked through was much like the one I’d left behind. The forest consisted of pines, maples, oaks, and poplars, but here the trees were fully leafed out, unlike at home, where they were barely beginning to bud. It was warm, too, pleasantly so, the air soft on my skin. Birds soared overhead and sang from branches. We made our way through the pathless forest, skirting around boulders and fallen trees. The ground sloped upward, gently at first and then more steeply. As we climbed, the terrain became rockier.
We stopped in front of two slabs of rock that leaned against each other, forming a narrow, triangular opening. Dad looked right and left. He twisted around to scan the forest behind us. Then he released my hand and pointed to the ground, indicating I should wait here. He dropped down on all fours and crawled into the cave. A minute later, his head appeared in the opening. He beckoned me inside.
Crawling into a dark underground space is not on my list of favorite things to do, but at that moment I would have followed Dad anywhere. Inside, the narrow passageway opened into a spacious chamber, illuminated by the same soft twilight as the woods. The room was furnished with a bed, a square table with one chair, and a bookcase crammed with books. Of course. Even living in a cave, Dad would need his books around him.
“Welcome to my hideout,” he said, grinning. He swept his arm across the space. “Not much to see, but for the moment it’s home. Here, sit.” He pulled the chair out from the table.
I sat down and ran a hand over the smooth tabletop.
“Would you like some refreshment?” Dad scowled and shook his head as he asked.
“Um,” I watched as the shaking grew more insistent. “No, thanks.”
“Good.” Dad’s cheeks puffed out as he heaved a sigh of relief. “If we have food, the magic of the Darklands compels us to ask that of any clay-born person we encounter.”
“Clay-born?”
“That’s what we call outsiders, those who still possess a physical body.”
Outsiders. But I was family. The vast distance that had grown up between my father and me over the past ten years suddenly gaped like the Grand Canyon.
“The old Persephone trick, huh?” I kept my voice light to cover up how much the “outsider” label stung.
“Exactly. I’m not supposed to tell you this, but the hell with it. The food here is made out of magic. Anything you eat or drink in the Darklands extends your stay.” His voice resonated with deep seriousness. “Keep that in mind.”
“I will.”
Dad took a seat on the bed, leaning toward me. We stared at each other. There was so much to say, and neither of us seemed to know where to start. I grabbed the first question that came to mind, the one I’d tried to ask in the woods. “How did you find me in that dark place?”
“The Black. I couldn’t let you go up to the light. I just couldn’t.” His eyes got shiny, and he turned his head away. “Wait, let me back up.” He stroked his beard, considering how to explain. “Here, we receive a…a knowing when a family member or friend, someone who was important to us in life, crosses the border. The words came into my mind: Vic’s here. And I thought…” He reached over and took my hand. “Vic, I thought you’d been killed.” His fingers went to my pulse point, and he shook his head in wonder. “But here you are, both body and soul. How did you—?”
“I’ll explain in a minute. How did you get me out of the Black?”
He nodded. “As soon as I knew you’d crossed, I rushed to the edge of the Wood. I swear, Vic, I haven’t moved that fast since I played football in school.” By football, Dad meant soccer. He’d always loved the game. “To our eyes, the Black is dark, but not impenetrable as it is to yours. I saw you standing there, staring up at the light. That’s when I knew you weren’t dead—you were on the ground, weighed down by a physical body. Most spirits who travel through the Black never perceive the forest outside it. The Wood is protected by a sort of membrane. I had to tug you through that.”
“What if I’d managed to climb up to that lighted doorway?”
He let got of my hand and stroked his beard again. “Then you would have been dead. Your soul would have shed its body in its eagerness to pass through.”
A little detail Mallt-y-Nos might have mentioned. I was beginning to think she didn’t really care if I found the items in her scavenger hunt. She’d run me through the door and left me to my fate. I never would have found my way out of the Black without Dad’s help.
I had a sudden thought. Maybe Pryce hadn’t found his way out, either. “Did you get a message that Pryce had come through?”
“Pryce? You mean from the nasty side of the family?” He shook his head. “I know who he is, of course. Demi-demon bastard tried to murder your sister when she was thirteen. But I never met him. There’d be no reason to notify me if he crossed. Is he dead?”
“Sort of.” When Dad’s forehead wrinkled with confusion, I added, “It’s a long story. But here’s the condensed version. Pryce was trying to lead a horde of demons out of Uffern to take over the human world. We fought, and I killed Cysgod, his shadow demon.”
Dad clapped his hands together. “That’s my girl!”
“Now he’s trying to re-create it. His shadow demon, I mean. Has there been any news here about the cauldron of transformation?”
“It’s been returned. Lord Arawn is very pleased. The cauldron is being transported to its rightful place in Tywyll, our main city.”
“It’s packed full of demons, Dad. Hidden ones. Pryce is going to use the cauldron to transform a whole bunch of lesser demons into a bigger, more powerful one. I’m here to stop him. Can you show me how to get to Tywyll?
“I…” Dad’s fingers moved over his beard. His eyes were distant, lost in thought, an expression I’d seen on his face many times. He considered so long I started to get nervous, thinking of how we’d run silently through the woods. And he’d called this cave his “hideout”—was there something he was hiding from?
Before I could ask, he stood abruptly. “I’ll do it,” he said. “But we don’t have much time to prepare. We’ll need food for me, and weapons…” He eyed my clothes. “I wish I could get you a different outfit.”
I looked at my tunic and leggings. Okay, so I looked like someone on her way to a Renaissance faire, but except for the color, they were the same as his. And they the beat the hell out of the Q-labeled gray sweats I’d been wearing in quarantine. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”