Exalted (8 page)

“So you really think Cayne's in
Hell
?” Meredith
asked as she crouched behind Drew and Carlin. Their bodies, between her and the
barred door, kept her hidden from the tiny hallway that led from one cell to
the next, so no one walking by would see the hole she was blasting through the
dirt wall of their cell.

Blasting, because after an hour of scratching, they’d only
been able to make a hole the size of a softball. It was Drew who'd had the
excellent idea of trying to use blue fire.

Over the course of what Meredith guessed was half a day,
they’d taken turns blasting the wall, thus far burrowing about two feet into
the packed mud that served as a divider between the cells.

Their guess—an educated one, based on the silence all
around—was that the cell next door was unused and, with a little luck,
unlocked. If they could tunnel their way into it before anyone noticed, they
could sneak out.

“I think so,” Drew said, scratching his head. Dirt from
Meredith’s evacuation was flying everywhere; she could feel it in her own hair,
making her itch.

“And tell me why do you think this?” Carlin asked.

As Mer leaned forward on her knees and let the fire roll
off her fingertips, she glanced over to find Car leaning her cheek on Drew’s
shoulder. Even from the back, Meredith thought she looked tired.

“I had a vision of us walking on a road that led to Hell,”
Drew said. “I didn’t know it was Hell at the time—I didn’t know what it was.
But I’ve thought about the…ah—” He trailed off, and Meredith stopped “digging”.
She turned, and Drew cast a surreptitious glance at Carlin. “The way the
Authorities affected us. Some of us. And how Edan seemed to have a similar
appeal to the...er—”

“Did you have a crush on Edan?!” Carlin cried.

“Not a crush! But there was a draw. Everyone felt it,” Drew
said defensively. “Even Julia.”

Meredith nodded. “It always gave me…I don’t know. The
willies.”

Drew raised his eyebrow. “Willies?”

“Julia said it reminded her of dementors.”

“What is a dementor?” Carlin asked, and Meredith’s eyes
bulged. “You never read
Harry Potter
?”

Carlin shook her head. “Are you saying Edan is a Demon?”

“No, I’m saying—wait, is that it? Oh my God!”

“I think so,” Drew nodded.

“He is not a Demon,” Carlin said. “An asshole, yes, a
traitor too. But not a Demon!”

Drew lowered his voice. “If what Jacquie told us is true—”

“She tried to kill Julia,” Carlin reminded him. “She is not
to be trusted!”

“I know, but still, if what she said was true, Methuselah
is working with The Adversary. Edan always said he was a 'consultant' for The
Three. Maybe he was like a liaison between The Three and The Adversary.” Drew
shrugged. “All I know is when I think of the road I saw as the road to Hell, it
feels right. I may have even seen Edan leading us down it. It was kind of
unclear as far as visions go.”

 
Carlin shook her
head. “I lusted for that man-ho! Now we are saying he's a Demon! It is too
much. Too much!”

Meredith turned around laughing, almost shooting Drew with
blue fire before something, somewhere made a noise that sounded kind of like
footfall and they all froze in place.

The sound passed, but the light moment was gone.

Carlin slumped back down beside Drew.

“Julia is gone. I was a fool. I feel like we are done.”

“We’re not,” Meredith said. She flexed her fingers, which
were stiff and sore and becoming blistered. “You weren’t a fool for thinking
Edan was hot. Heck, I did, too. We’ll find Julia. Unless I’m way wrong about
the wall, I bet I can blast through it before your next shift.”

Carlin reached out and hugged Meredith. “Thank you,” she
said into her long, black hair.

“What would it mean if a Demon was working for The Three,”
Drew mused, and Meredith watched his dark eyes light up. “It would confirm
communication between The Three and The Adversary. Not just communication, but
collaboration. Which would fit with what we’ve been told.”

“How is this?” Carlin asked. She ran her hand back through
her curly chocolate hair, shaking out the dirt-covered locks.

“Car, keep up,” Mer teased.

Carlin turned, hands up, like she was refusing to catch a
fly ball. “I do not want to!” she said vehemently. “It is all…too horrible.”

Her horrible sounded like
hor-ee-blay
, a minor mess-up Meredith found endearing.

“Me either,” she said. It made her feel sick every time she
thought about Julia. Or Cayne. Or even Nathan. In contrast to the life she'd
known before Julia arrived at the compound, this really was too horrible to
comprehend sometimes.

 
“The Three, if what
we think we know is true,” Drew said, “are tired of being bound to Earth, and
probably bitter about it, too. They’d like to get at The Alpha and spend time
in Heaven. The Adversary is equally tired of Hell, and would like admission to
Earth or Heaven also.”

“Julia is a sacrifice,” Carlin said with a wince, “but what
about Cayne? Why did Edan take him to Hell? What is the purpose?”

“Clearly there’s a lot we don’t know,” Drew said.

“Things we'll find out ASAP if I can just blast my way
through this damn wall!” Meredith wiggled her fingers, casting a blue glow over
everything.

***

Cayne tightened his hands around the throat of the
red-skinned, horned devil caricature that was, for the moment, The Adversary’s
form. They were standing in rolling flames of hellfire that caused blistering
pain without physically harming Cayne, and he was choking the monster who had
sired him.

The Adversary was laughing.

In one quick motion, he knocked Cayne’s arms away and
tossed him into the inferno. As the shocking pain drew a scream from his
throat, The Adversary grinned. “I'm impressed with your...perseverance.”

Cayne stumbled out of the flames, his skin feeling ravaged
but looking whole, just like all the times before.

“Let me go!” He roared as he charged. He feigned high, then
tried to kick The Adversary’s feet out from under him.

“Unfortunately, you don’t get any better,” The Adversary
said as he nimbly avoided Cayne’s attack. He chuckled, then kicked Cayne in the
jaw as he was trying to stand.

Cayne’s face and neck exploded in pain, so much pain that
if he were on Earth he might have passed out. But like all the times before,
after a minute catching his breath, he was able to stand. And charge The
Adversary again. And receive more punishment.

He had no idea how long he had been in Hell. There was no
obvious day or night, and Cayne never felt tired. He drifted from one twisted
memory to another, enduring The Adversary’s taunts as Julia stood in for Kat,
for Cayne’s victims, for his tormentors. As he watched Julia die a thousand
different ways.

Cayne was sick of it.

“You’re not my father!” he cried as he rushed The Adversary,
but The Adversary stuck his arm out for a quick, hard undercut. Cayne flew
back, landing not in the inferno but in a narrow mud hall.

“Not this,” he whispered, his rage flushed out of him by
crushing sorrow.

This was worse than everything else, because this, The
Adversary assured him, was real. He’d been forced down the hall a dozen times,
made to watch as Methuselah worked on Julia.

“I don’t want to see this,” he moaned. “Not again!”

“You must.”

“Why!”

The Adversary shook his ridiculous horned head.
“Instruction, my son.”

Cayne’s retort was cut short by a long whimper echoing down
the hall. He clenched his fists but refused to go forward. He couldn’t keep
doing the same thing over and over. If he was going to save Julia, he needed to
do something different.

“Tell me the meaning of this. Besides 'instruction'. If I
understand more, maybe I'll be more willing to help,” he tried.

The Adversary stared at him for a long moment, then with a
wave of his hand, the tunnel and Julia faded. “I show you this for that exact
reason: so you will accept your fate.”

They landed on hard, cracked dirt. Dark gray clouds covered
the entire sky. As far as Cayne could see in any direction, there was only dry,
dead earth. “I’ll never hurt Julia. Your plan won't work if it depends on
that.”

The Adversary shifted, out of the devil form he’d adopted
to mock Cayne’s 'terrestrial superstitions', into one that looked like an older
version of Cayne.

“You will fulfill our end of the bargain. You will submit
to Methuselah’s design, and you will be my ambassador. I had hoped you would be
a willing vessel. If not, I can take the same route as Methuselah. I can carve
you out until all that remains is my will.”

“So you say,” Cayne sneered. “I hope you’ve got eternity.”

The Adversary smiled serenely. “I do. Time means nothing
here. I could work on you for eons and return you to Earth the minute after you
left it.”

Cayne was careful to keep his mind blank. He had learned
how to keep his thoughts from The Adversary. He avoided dwelling on his
feelings or his plans for escape, incomplete though they were. Still, the
Adversary sensed his despair.

“There is nothing you can do to stop this.”

“What if we went to Earth together and destroyed
Methuselah. You could take his place.”

“As leader of the Chosen!” The Adversary laughed.

“As the top dog on Earth.”

The Adversary smiled widely. “You must feel strongly for
your girl if you’re willing to unleash The Adversary on your world.” He
grinned. “I want nothing more than to encourage such a pure act of selfishness,
but as long as The Alpha’s barrier exists, I’m no match for Methuselah on
Earth. I can get there, as I did when I sired you, but I cannot stay long. For
that to happen, the net would have to be let down. And for the net to come
down, you must kill Julia. It is Methuselah's plan, and he is the strongest
force on Earth.”

“Come on,” Cayne cajoled. “You’re The Adversary.”

“And vain, yes, but it’s simply a matter of—let’s say
metaphysics. I have to exert too much energy holding physical form to stand
against him, so long as the net is in place. Its intent is to keep us from
advancing toward Heaven. Coming from Hell to Earth is as hard for me as from
Earth to Heaven would be for Methuselah.” The Adversary shrugged.

“I could lead your army—”

“They wouldn’t follow you,” The Adversary said, his
conspiratorial smile vanishing. “Your part in this is set. Your lover will
serve as Methuselah’s vessel, and you will be the conduit for my power.
Together, you will bring down the barrier.”

Cayne
clenched his hands into fists and stared at his sire. “I’ll kill you,” he
snarled.

The
Adversary laughed. “The hard way then. I was hoping you’d make me break you. It
takes longer, of course, but it’s far more fun.” He took a step closer and
raised his hand. “Methuselah was actually being gentle with your little whore.”

Cayne
saw red in an instant. He leaped at The Adversary, but fell to the ground
screaming as pain erupted across his entire body. A white fire hotter than any
he’d felt yet covered every inch of him, burning his clothes, seeping into his
pores, filling his head, his mouth, his lungs. Brilliant light, searing light,
and so much
pressure
...

Cayne
moaned, writhing as almost every part of him was scorched, but somehow still
intact. He couldn’t even anticipate the relief of death.

Which
was good—because as agony seared the thoughts out of his mind, an epiphany
filled it: This was a link, he realized. Just like the one Methuselah had made
with Julia when he leashed her. And if he had a link to The Adversary's power,
that meant maybe he could use it.

Chapter Twelve

“Heck yeah.” Meredith laughed, throwing her dirt-smeared
arms around Carlin’s narrow shoulders.

“We did it,” Carlin gasped, swinging her slender hips like
a hula doll.

“Now let’s get the hell out of dodge,” Drew said, grabbing
both their arms. He pulled them through the open doorway of the vacant cell,
and they filled the small, mud hall.

Carlin sniffed the stale air, wrinkling her nose. “I hate
this place.”

Meredith felt the same way, and she thought she might hate
it worse because of how they'd gotten there. Even after they escaped—and they
would escape, with Julia—she would still remember the feeling she'd had when
she'd come around the side of the mountain peak and seen Nathan waiting in that
van.

That
was betrayal. She still felt it like a knife.

In fact, if she wasn't doing something, such as digging out
of that cell Nathan had locked them in, her default emotion was
pain
.

Pain over the loss of Julia. Pain that she'd played such a
large role in their capture. Pain over...everything.

Thankful that none of her friends shared her
emotion-sensing gift, Meredith put her hand on Carlin's shoulder, and the three
of them moved down the narrow hall like an awkward, six-legged worm.

“Where do we go?” Carlin asked.

“We need to find Julia,” Drew said, “so probably down. I
bet The Three's lair is at the bottom of the pyramid.”

"Why?"

He shrugged. "Isn't that where they put
pharaohs?"

Meredith nodded. “It's as good a plan as any, I guess, but
how do we know which way is down?”

Drew wiggled his brows. “Trial and error.”

With Drew at the front, Carlin clutching his hand, and
Meredith clutching Carlin's, the three of them hustled down the hall, ducking
inside a pale stone door when they thought they heard echoing footfall.

Meredith almost hoped they had. She wanted to see Nathan
again. She wanted to punch him in the nose. Then she thought about Julia, and
she prayed they didn't get caught.