“Oh, good. You decided to join the dark side after all. But be careful,” Meredith says with mock fear on her face. “If you get too close to me, you might just turn into a Darkyn yourself.”
I bite back a retort. “What are those?” I ask, pointing to the symbols that almost seem to glow with power.
Meredith looks to where I’m pointing. “Rune symbols. They’re ancient forms of magic Darkyns use to keep safe. We paint them on the walls of wherever we stay. Every symbol has a different meaning and serves a purpose against many different paranormal beings.” She glances over at Lukah, who’s picking at the table, sniffing everything. “Lucky for them, I removed the one for dogs when I smelled their kind heading this way.”
Damien freezes up next to Lukah, his gaze so hard I think it might kill Meredith on the spot.
She waves him off. “Oh, don’t be so sensitive.”
I scan back through the little I know about Darkyns and don’t recall anything about them. “I’ve never heard of runes.”
“Which is exactly why we use them. Runes aren’t used by the magically advanced Primevals, so it goes easily unnoticed. But young Katie knows this, don’t you?” She shifts her chin in Katie’s direction with an evil glint in her eye.
Katie seems to shrivel next to me.
Like a cat pouncing on a mouse, Meredith steps toward her. “I bet your mother told you all about these when you were little. You probably had a few of them in your house.”
I look back to one of the symbols closest to me. The lines of the runes dip and swirl with little dots set around them, looking sort of like letters from the Chinese language. It’s then I remember why they seem so familiar.
“Your closet… in your room,” I say, looking back at Katie. “I remember seeing that symbol painted on the wall when I was going through your clothes.”
The smug look on Meredith’s face irks me. “Of course there was. Though Eliza liked to kid herself into thinking she could rise above our family legacy, deep down, the draw to our basic power couldn’t be resisted. Not when she was raised on it.”
“Are you done? No one cares,” Jezi cuts in. She puts her arm around Katie’s shoulder and guides her away from Meredith, over to the circle of couches and love seats accumulated near the rotted stage.
“This place hasn’t changed much since I left it,” Weldon says, looking the place over.
“You mean the pigsty you left behind?” Meredith says, lips curled.
“You’ll have to excuse my humble abode,” Weldon says as he watches our eyes preying over his things, one hand still tucked into a pocket. “But I’ve been kind of busy trying to, you know, save the world and all from the likes of your kind.”
He sits on the slick wooden arm of an antique French-style couch with velvet red fabric. There are two other retro-looking couches in a splash of orange and yellow circling around a large break drum used as a makeshift fire pit. A roaring fire is lit, sending waves of heat my way. Smoke and ash billow up toward the hole in the roof.
“Dude, this place is rad,” Lukah says, plopping down across from us.
Damien doesn’t look impressed, nor does Bianca or Toby, who choose to stand by the door to keep watch. Jaxen points to the couch I’m on, asking Gavin to sit with us, and then sits next to me.
Katie keeps looking at Meredith through the corner of her eye.
“Why did you live here?” I ask, mystified by the place. Although it was filthy and probably infested with rats, there’s something rebellious and freeing about being in here. All the history left behind from so many different generations. I could just imagine the many feet that walked through, waiting to see the next Hollywood hit. I look over to where the screen would have been, finding it tattered and half-gone.
“Where else should a misfit live?” Weldon says as he plops down on the French couch, his arms spread out around the back. “But enough about me. Claire. How do you know her?”
Meredith sits ramrod straight. Her features are pinched together the same way Eliza’s always were. Like there’s an awful stench in the air she doesn’t want to inhale. She scoots forward and says, “We were held in a section deep inside the Underground together. Our cells were next door to each other and, when you spend what feels like ages alone in the dark pit of hell, you kind of make do with what you have to remain sane. We had each other. We had the comfort of our voices.”
Weldon’s face is blank of emotion, though I feel his insides churning. “Claire wouldn’t talk with your kind.”
“Have you considered that the Claire you knew before is nothing like the Claire I know now?” Meredith counters.
Weldon’s fists ball up against the arms of the chair.
“I’m sorry. Manners aren’t really my thing. Is this one of those situations where I’m supposed to soften what I say to protect your delicate emotions?” Meredith’s eyes land on me. “You see what I did there?” She’s mocking Weldon because of his earlier use of the word whore.
I think Lukah chuckles, unaware of how close this hits home for Weldon.
Weldon’s stewing. Steaming from the inside out. Jezi’s watching him with a pained expression. This can’t be easy on her either. Watching the man she’s involved with asking about the woman he might be able to save. The woman who still has his heart.
“At first, Claire didn’t want to talk to me,” Meredith says, continuing her story despite Weldon’s obvious anger. “We probably went years without saying a word. Time has a way of softening someone’s resolve, especially when you’re all alone and being tortured day in and day out by the likes of our demon keeper.”
Weldon flinches, and I want to reach out to him.
“It started with a few sentences here and there, and, eventually, it turned into a friendship unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. We share something no one else has ever shared—pain.”
“How about we skip the bullshit and you get to the part where you explain why you’re here and she’s still down there,” Weldon says tightly.
She stares at him for a moment. “It’s because of our keeper. We managed to escape, and we spent what felt like a year trying to find our way out. When the unholy seal was broken, it upset the entire Underground. We made our break, just like we had planned. We were feet away from the exit when I turned around to make sure Claire was still with me and found that our keeper had grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her back down.
“I made a move for him, but it was too late. She was gone. Which is why I came to you. We promised each other that should only one of us make it out, we would do whatever we could to save the other. You are who she told me to contact, which puts us here, in this exact moment.”
I put my hand in my pocket and touch the photo my father gave me, thinking of my mother.
“Look. I’m a Darkyn, plain and simple. I won’t pretend to be anything less. I don’t like you and you don’t like me, but we have two common interests that will serve us both if we work together.”
“And that is?” Gavin asks.
Meredith’s face hardens. “Rescuing Claire and bringing Clara and Bael down.”
Weldon perks up a little. “Have a grudge with the evil queen, do we?”
“You can say that.”
Weldon begins picking at his nails with a flux. “And do you have a plan to bring said evil queen down?”
“Of course,” she says. “Who do you mistake me for? An idiot?”
“If the shoe fits.”
“Weldon!” I say, eyeing him down. Jaxen grimaces at him.
Lukah chuckles, clearly getting a kick out of all of this.
“I know where she’s being held and I know how to get there,” Meredith says. “The only thing is, and I already told her this, if things go sour, we’re going to have to turn this one over.”
She’s looking at me.
I wait for an explosion from Jaxen. His jaw tightens and his fists ball up as he stiffens next to me, but no words leave his lips. He’s looking at me. Waiting for me
to react. Letting me make the best decision I can, and then he drops his eyes.
“Why?” Weldon drags out, irritation suspending from his clenched teeth.
“Because she’s the best bartering tool we have. The minute she steps foot in the Underground, and they become aware of it, you know damn well Bael and his pet Clara will do what they can to obtain her. She was never part of the promise I made to Claire.”
I don’t have to think twice about it.
“I already told her it was okay. I have to get to the machine one way or another.”
Jezi grabs my hand and squeezes for reassurance. Katie begs me with her eyes to reconsider.
“No, Faye,” Weldon says firmly, his hand held almost protectively in front of me, preventing me from scooting forward. “I’m all for your confidence, but not when it comes to this.” His churning eyes bore into Meredith. “We do it another way, or no deal.”
Disgust curls her lip. “You’d really leave your partner down there to protect her?”
I look over at him and say under my breath. “We already decided this, Weldon. No matter what, I need to get to that machine. And I need to get that amulet.”
“Amulet?” Meredith asks.
With her by your side, you will find the amulet. My mother’s words echo through my head.
“There’s an amulet my mother told me I need to find that will help me. I don’t know why or what it does, just that it’s a small piece of amber with something inside I’m going to need. And that I would find it with your help.”
“Amber?” Meredith repeats, her eyes growing distant. “You know… jewelry is a rare thing in the Underground.”
I tilt my head to the side. “I never said anyone was wearing it.”
“No, but what if I said someone was?”
“Who?”
All of us lean in, hoping this is the information we need.
“My keeper. He has a necklace that has a small piece of amber. I remember because it always swung near my face when he’d drag us from our cells for our daily torture sessions.”
“Does said keeper have a name?” Weldon asks in a tone that suggests he knows what she’s talking about. Even with my eyes open, I can’t fight back the images he’s shown me before. Being dragged around by another demon. Tortured until he passed out.
“He’s one of Bael’s nameless,” Meredith says with a snarl. “One of those who are slaved to him through whatever sad deal he tried to make with Bael.”
I look over at Weldon, and then Jaxen and Gavin. “Maybe her keeper has what we need.”
Gavin doesn’t say a word. He just sits there with his arms crossed, unusually quiet and so unlike himself. There isn’t any light left in his eyes, and understandably so. Jaxen looks like he’s fighting back the urge to grab me and run. So I turn to Weldon.
Weldon stares at me for a moment, indecision weighing in his eyes. “I won’t abandon you, Faye. No matter what.” He looks back at Meredith. “Do we have a deal? Do you really want to save Claire? Because I’m not kidding around when I say we come up with another plan, or we walk.”
I can’t tell if he’s bluffing or not. If he’d really be willing to let Claire go just to protect me. I study Meredith’s face, praying she gives him the answer he wants to hear, because I don’t want to have to leave him behind to just to make sure Claire is rescued.
Meredith rolls her eyes and exhales loudly. “Fine. Whatever. But if we get there and things go wrong, it’s her they’re going to want, and I’m not going to risk my neck for her.” Her eyes stab through me. “I’ll turn you over in a heartbeat if it means getting Claire out of there.”
“You wouldn’t have to because I’d go willingly,” I say, lips taut.
“Then we have a deal,” Meredith says.
Weldon crosses his arms and settles back into his seat, looking more at home than I’ve seen him look anywhere else. “So what’s your plan?”
“WE’LL LEAVE AT DAWN WHEN the Underground activity is at its lowest,” Meredith says as Weldon throws another log into the small bonfire we’re all sitting around.
“Let’s go over the plan again,” he says, taking his seat next to me.
“Weldon,” I say, grabbing his arm, “we’ve been through it a hundred times.”
“Then one more time won’t hurt.” His tone a vat of seriousness. “Look, I know you’re confident this will work, but I’m… I’m not, Faye. This is bigger than anything we’ve ever been through together.”
Worry swims in his golden eyes, something I’ve only witnessed a few short times before.
“He’s right,” Gavin says. It’s the first words he’s said in almost an hour. “We need to make sure everyone here knows their part to play.” He stands.
“Where are you going?” Jaxen asks, looking up at him.
“To let the others know what’s happening. We have two other vans waiting on us. If we’re not heading out tonight, then we’ll crash here and leave at first light.”
Katie shoots up from her seat. “Can I go with you?”
Gavin gives her a weird look, shrugging his shoulders before turning and walking away.
“I need a break from her,” Katie says to me as she steps around our legs to follow Gavin.
“I’ll go with them and make sure she’s good,” Jezi says to me. I know she’s trying to help, but I can’t help but think she needs just as much of a break from Weldon and the talk about Claire.
I bite the inside of my cheek and turn to find Meredith studying the rest us with curious eyes. I wonder if she’s thinking about our partnership. About who her partner was and how she betrayed them in her mission to becoming a Darkyn. I think about asking her, but will it matter when the time comes for our paths to uncross?
“You will take us through a shadow to the entry point where I escaped, which is only a few blocks from here,” she says, reciting the plan once again. “From there, we’ll make our way through the inner network of tunnels, ones I marked on my way out, that will lead us to where Claire is. Once we’re there, we’ll scope out the area, wait for my keeper to remove her from her cell for torture, overthrow him, take his amulet and Claire, and then get her back to the surface. After that, I’ll point out the safest route to the Exanimator, help you destroy it, and then I’m gone.”
Weldon’s pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head. “There are just so many loopholes to this plan. What if she isn’t kept where she was kept before? What if she has a new keeper and the one with the amulet is nowhere to be found?”
“What if? What if? What if?” Meredith replies with a casual shrug. “You can’t plan every last detail when it comes to Hell, Weldon. Even you know that.”
“That’s comforting,” he retorts.
Meredith ignores him. “We will readjust the plan and go from there. I mean it when I say I won’t stop until Claire is free. The rest doesn’t matter.”
“You’ve made that perfectly clear. Same goes for us,” Jaxen says, his voice low and deep. “Once she’s free and we have the Exanimator in our sights, what happens to you won’t matter to us either.”
Meredith rolls her eyes.
I poke at the fire with a stick, thinking about all the possible outcomes. Everything always leads back to one thing I know I can’t say out loud. No matter what, I won’t be returning to the surface with them. Once Claire is safe, I will continue on to the Exanimator, one way or another, and put an end to this once and for all.
I drop the stick into the fire and stand. Jaxen does as well.
“Where are you going?” Weldon asks, and I know the pleading in his voice is only because he doesn’t want to be left alone with Meredith.
“To get some fresh air and stretch my legs,” I say.
“If you leave me alone with her, I swear I’ll kill you.”
“Stop being a baby. You have Lukah. And… no, you won’t,” I say back to his mind with a small smile.
He rolls his eyes. “No. I won’t.”
LATER T
HAT NIGHT AS I think about the day’s events, I roll, tucking myself closer to the crease of the couch for warmth as the chatter between Evangeline’s pack dies off. Jaxen lies on the ground next to me, and I find myself wishing we were back in our bed. Missing the heat his body always gives me.
Jezi and Evangeline worked together to fashion enough cots for the rest of our small team to sleep as comfortably as they can inside the cold theater. Lunch and dinner was brought to us by the drivers of the van, while we spent the majority of the time going over the maps of the tunnels with Meredith and re-charting the hidden and unused portion of tunnels she made her escape through.
“You’re telling me you sent men in, and they made it out alive with these plans?” Meredith asks when we show her the last of the maps.
“A few did,” Gavin says. And that’s all he says.
Meredith snorts. “I’m sure Bael and his merry band of assholes are having the time of their lives watching you Primevals scramble around the Underground. You do realize that any inch they think you’ve covered, they’re going to be patrolling. Heavily. And possibly setting up traps. Lots of them.”
“Obviously, this has been considered,” Weldon bites back. “Why else would we resort to using you?”
“Touché,” she says, ending the small feud.
With Sterling’s approval, we wait out the night like Meredith advised, counting down the hours until daylight. Jaxen and I play a short game of Rummy, and I absorb every smile he gives me. Evangeline makes quick work of introducing herself to Meredith and setting it straight that should Meredith try anything funny, Evangeline and her pack will make quick work of shredding her into pieces.
The rest of our team stays on the other side of the theater, checking and re-checking their weapons. We’re all on edge. All trying not to think about what tomorrow brings. And that edginess doesn’t die off when we take to our sleeping spots and settle in.