Torn (27 page)

I clenched my jaw, determined not to die. Not when Zane had sacrificed himself, banking on me to step up to save the whole damn world. I feared I didn’t have it in me to be the hero that the world needed, but right then I didn’t have to find out. Right then, all I had to do was survive.

I pushed in beside Rose and grabbed hold, then gave the gate a good, solid tug.

Nothing
.

Well, damn. What was the point of superstrength if you couldn’t even open one stuck door?

I spun around, searching for Deacon. I needed his help, but he was still yards away, circumventing the gulf that was opening wider and wider in the floor, sucking everything in—furniture, training ring, weapons—as if it were a black hole. I held my breath because Deacon had lost his left hand, so he had only one set of fingers with which to grip the wall. The gray metal cabinet was still bolted to the wall, and as I watched, Deacon ripped open the door one-handed, then pulled out a crossbow. He met my eyes, then tossed the weapon toward me.

Penemue’s tentacle lashed out blindly, knocking the crossbow off its trajectory, but I launched myself sideways and managed to catch it before it disappeared into the abyss. Deacon pitched a quiver of arrows next, and those I caught more easily, then quickly slid the sheath onto my back and hefted the crossbow, already feeling better for the weapon in my hand. My knife was the only thing that would actually kill a demon once and for all, but under the circumstances, I was keen on just knowing I could slow the creature down. Although I have to say, a crossbow wasn’t exactly a panacea. Considering the size of the beast fighting its way up through the concrete floor, what I really needed was a missile launcher.

Deacon armed himself, too, then grabbed onto the door and used it to swing himself over the edge of the widening chasm. I held my breath. There were only about three inches of floor left where he was. If he tripped . . . If he needed to reach out and grab something . . .

But he didn’t, and once his feet were on firm ground I allowed myself one tense breath. He was steady, but he was hardly safe yet. He stood with his back pressed to the wall, his toes hanging over the ragged concrete edge in a sick parody of a suicidal jumper balancing on a high-rise ledge.

“Deacon! Hurry!” I shouted, as he pushed away from the wall and leaped from the narrow portion to where the ground widened. He landed, steady, and I exhaled in relief, only to feel the sharp sting of cold horror as the tentacle lashed out, circled his waist, and pulled him backward into the abyss.

“No!” I yelled, as Rose cried out Deacon’s name.

I don’t remember moving, but I was on my belly, my hand reaching out, down into the blackness. Down into where Deacon had gone. Into the night, into the void, into hell.

“Deacon!” I screamed, though I could see nothing in the dark. Not him. Not Penemue. Not even the fires of hell. “Deacon!” I cried. “Deacon! Can you hear me?”

But even as I called, I knew it was futile. He was lost, and my stomach roiled as I choked back bile, willing myself to keep focused and in control despite the fact that my demonic partner had been thrust back into the hell that he’d so desperately longed to escape.

I couldn’t think about that just then. If anything, Deacon had bought us time, and I was going to use it. No way was his getting sucked down into hell going to mean the end of me and my sister.

“Come on,” I said, scooting back from the abyss and grabbing Rose’s elbow. She stood stock-still, her face pale, her lips parted as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t quite find the words. “Rose!” I snapped, tugging her back toward the elevator. “Move.”

Not that my determination got us any farther. Deacon’s demise hadn’t magically loosened the elevator gate, and we were still down in the training basement, trapped beside a hole to hell where a gigantic demon would surely reemerge at any moment.

I gave the gate one more futile yank, then kicked the damn thing. It was no ordinary metal we were dealing with. As a training arena for preternatural assassins, the room was chock-full of special protections. How nice.

“Can you make a portal?” Rose asked. “Can you get us out of here?”

I closed my eyes and concentrated, but nothing happened. I’d only recently acquired the skill to create a “bridge” that would take me and my companions through space, time, and the whole nine yards. I’d done it just a few minutes ago, actually, when Rose, Deacon, and I had been racing for our lives. But we’d been returning from a quest for a mystical vessel, and without some object as my goal, I didn’t have any way to mentally anchor the bridge.

Which was the long, rambling way of saying that we were stuck.

“We’ll figure something out,” I said, giving the gate another hard yank.

“Lily . . .” Her voice was low, and far too steady. Which to me meant that she was scared shitless.

I looked over my shoulder—and immediately saw why. A mountainous mass was rising from the dark, like the time-lapse formation of primeval hills. The purple mountains majesty, however, weren’t covered with demon slime, and the viscous, snotlike goo that slath ered this demonic head made me want to puke.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen scaly, slimy demons before, but the Grykon I’d fought my first day on the job had been more or less my size. A monster, sure, but still manageable.

This
, though . . .

The head alone was the size of a Suburban even without the massive, filth-covered horns that extended at least five feet in opposite directions.

His eyes were red with black slits for pupils, and, within the black, I swear I could see the souls of the damned. He had no nose, only what appeared to be a rotting orifice, and green slime oozed out. His skin looked to be as tough as an elephant’s hide, and it appeared to be moving, as if living things were sliding around under the flesh.

“Lily . . .” Beside me, Rose whimpered.

“Don’t look,” I said, pushing her behind me as I lifted the crossbow that seemed utterly insubstantial. “Don’t look; don’t watch. We’ll be fine.”

I reached up and closed my hand around the necklace that was the
Oris Clef
, the demonic key that Penemue himself had created and I’d recovered only moments before. The thing had the power to control the coming apocalyptic horde of demons, and damned if I didn’t wish I had that power right then. At the moment, a subservient hell monster would be a really good thing.

“What are we going to do?” Rose said.

“Defend ourselves,” I said. I raised my crossbow. “Ourselves, and the
Oris Clef
.”

So far, our only advantage was that Penemue had slowed down. At first, the building had been crumbling around us. But when Deacon had disappeared, so had the demon’s tentacles. He’d returned, but his ascent was so slow that I had to wonder if he was half-in and half-out of some other dimension.

“You need to go,” Rose said. “Pick something, use your arm, and just
go
.”

I kept my eye firmly on the crossbow’s sight. “One, it’s not that simple. Two, I’m not leaving you.” I’d co zied up to hell—literally—to save my sister, and there was no way I was going to throw her to the wolves. Or the demons.

A long wail emerged from behind me, and we both turned to stare at the gaping hole that was the demon’s rising mouth. His eyes were like fire, and his tentacle thrust up, then slammed back down again only a few feet from us, rendering bits of broken concrete into dust.

“Shit!” I cried, bracing my body against the useless elevator. “Something’s going on. There’s no way he should have missed us.”

Something
was
going on, and my heart lifted a little when I realized what it had to be:
Deacon
. He was down there fighting. Buying us time.

He was giving us a gift, and we damn well needed to use it.

“I’m going to check the weapons cabinet,” I said.

“Right now?” Her voice was high, squeaky, and terrified.

I didn’t expect to find anything to kill Penemue with, but maybe I’d find something to help me open the elevator. For that matter, if I could get to Zane’s office, maybe he had some sort of override button. I didn’t know. All I could think about was not wasting the chance that Deacon was giving us.

“He’ll catch you!” Rose said, as I started in that direction. “He’ll knock you in!”

“I’ll be careful,” I said, but even as I spoke, the tentacle burst free, along with the shoulders of the beast, making the floor buckle and tossing me onto my ass. Penemue lashed out, and it was clear he was aiming right for me. I fired, the arrow shooting true—embedding itself right into that slimy, sickening skull.

Fabulous,
I thought. And then amended the thought to
Holy freaking shit
, because my arrow was ejected immediately, thrust out by the intense force of a horrific column of fire.

I threw myself sideways, missing the bulk of the blast, but it still scorched my jeans.

“Lily!” Rose called.

“I’m okay!” I held on to the crossbow as I scooted along the floor, abandoning my plan to head to the cabinet. Instead, I had a better idea.

“Get down,” I shouted, then raced toward the elevator, the crossbow aimed at Penemue. “The ground, Rose! On the ground!” The tentacle swiveled and turned, and I dodged it. The head had disappeared beneath floor level, but I needed to see it again, and I took a chance and yelled for Deacon. “Let him go! I have an idea!”

I heard a low rumble like an oncoming earthquake, so deep and menacing it made my insides tremble. And then the demon burst up, the slime-covered head breaching the shattered floor, as if someone holding him down had suddenly let go and the beast had been overwhelmed even by his own velocity.

I aimed. I fired.

And as soon as the arrow was free, I threw myself to the ground, barely missing the burst of fire that shot from Penemue’s punctured skull. The blast shot over both me and Rose, slamming exactly where I’d hoped—right in the middle of the elevator gate.

Bingo
.

The gate didn’t open, but it didn’t matter because now there was a giant hole in the metal mesh.

“In,”
I shouted to Rose. “Get in!”

Rose didn’t need my encouragement. She was already climbing through the hole and calling for me to follow her. I didn’t have to be told twice, and I scrambled in that direction, over a floor that was buckling and moving again beneath my feet as the beast surged up, pissed off and determined to stop me.

The damned tentacle shot up again. Only that time it was followed by two more appendages and the entirety of the beast’s head. His mouth burst open, and millions of flies emerged, swarming around me, getting in my eyes and my hair and my ears and my face. I swatted at them, ducked my head, and tried to run—tried even harder not to be grossed out—but the truth was, I wasn’t fast enough. The bugs did their job, and as I tried to shove through the thick, living mass, I felt something thick and cold lash itself around my ankle.

As Rose screamed, I rolled over, slashing at the tentacle, half-terrified that I’d miss and get my leg, and the other half of me not caring if I lost all my limbs so long as I got free.

It wasn’t any use.

Penemue was dragging me back toward hell.

I reached down, grabbing onto the tentacle and trying to pry it off with my fingers. As I did, I looked up, and found myself staring into the demon’s face. Into its eyes.

Oh, fuck
.

I felt the snap—the sharp tug when I was pulled into another creature’s thoughts. Another little gift of mine, and one that I really didn’t welcome at the moment, but I had no choice, because I was in and the horror was around me, the fires and the pain and, oh, God, my skin—my skin was burning, the flesh curling, turning to ash as I watched, as I suffered and cried, and then starting all over again, the pain so intense I swear it was alive, and I couldn’t do anything except scream and scream and scream and—

The connection broke. I’d shut my eyes in terror, the reflex freeing me from the horror. A horror, I knew, that would be mine if I did what needed to be done. If I played the martyr. If I stepped up and saved the world.

I breathed deep, trying to control my trembling.

Dear God, how could I ever find the courage?

“Lily!”

Rose’s voice cut through my fear and self-loathing. I didn’t need that courage now. Now I just needed to get out of there.

With a fresh burst of determination, I rolled to my side as the tentacle tugged on my leg, this time thrusting my knife into the ground and trying with all my might to halt our progress toward the abyss. I slammed it down hard, shoving it into a crevice in the concrete, then closing my hand tight around it. With my free hand, I grabbed a protruding metal beam, my muscles straining as I tried to pull myself up.

“Nothing’s happening!” Rose called. “The buttons don’t work!”

Okay, I confess I wasn’t completely interested in the state of the elevator at the moment, although I did want my sister to get out of there. Pretty soon, I figured she was going to have plenty of time to escape. Because once the demon had me and the key, it really wasn’t going to give a flip about her.

But the other thing I was afraid of was that the demon would realize that she was the way to get to me. Take her hostage, and I was going to be Cooperation Girl. I knew it, and so, I feared, did the demon.

My fears were borne home when the pressure of the tentacle around my leg let up, and I screamed out in both anger and fear as the appendage lashed forward to close around Rose’s waist.

She howled, using her knife to hack uselessly at the tentacle that refused to let go. I rushed forward to join her, thrusting my blade in and twisting, but the demon’s tentacle seemed immune to pain.

“It’s getting tighter! Lily, oh, God, make it stop!”