Fallen University: Year Three

Michael cocked his head at me. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” Jayce confirmed, his voice strong and even. “He’s part of our… team.”

Michael raised his brows at me. “He’s bonded to you?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re chasing him down. You know where he is?”

I shook my head. “That way?” I pointed helplessly to the right. “I’ve been following my gut. It’s been dragging us around for two months, zig-zagging a little, but always in this general direction.”

Michael swallowed hard and stroked his muzzle like a mustache. Then he nodded, like he’d come to some sort of decision based on an internal debate. “Come with me.”

He shoved out of the chair and walked toward the back of the cabin. I followed. The guys hesitated, but none of them let me get too far ahead before they followed too. Michael led us up a narrow spiral staircase to a small circular room surrounded by glassless windows and roofed in leafy branches.

“Underworld deer blind,” Michael said with what looked like a grin. It was a little hard to tell on his wolfish face. “Look out there.”

He pointed in the direction I’d been pulled toward for so long. The window looked through a gap in a pair of hills which framed a part of the city I hadn’t been able to see before. A tall, spiked tower stood just off-center through the gap in the distance, black and foreboding. Dull red rings glowed on it from top to bottom, flashing like fire every few seconds.

“The tower?” I asked. “What about it?”

Michael frowned, stepped behind me to look at the view from my perspective, then scooted me over a bit more to the right. He pointed again. “Nah. Not that. Behind it.”

As soon as I saw it my heart started doing somersaults. Not as eye-catching as the tower, but somehow more intimidating, a wide fortress spread in an uneven circle like a cancerous tumor on the ruddy landscape. Its outer walls were topped with spikes that narrowed into points so fine they looked like hairs from a distance. A lava glow emanated from the center, burping great clouds of sickly green and bruised purple smoke.

It was terrifying—but there was hope in my terror.

I could feel him. Xero was inside that building.

“That’s Gavriel’s fortress,” Michael said. “The Underworld’s most wanted all get sent there. If your man was a spy, that’s where he’s at. New recruits and soldiers that need… retraining go there.”

“Can you take us to it?” Kai’s voice cut through the chaotic haze in my head.

The werewolf let out a shocked sounding laugh. “Oh, no. Uh-uh. I ain’t going back there, not now, not never.” My heart started to sink before he added, “But I can help you out.”

“How?”

Michael grinned. “Let me show you.”

“You know, I knew a doomsday survivalist back on earth,” Kai said as he looked around at the array of weaponry on the walls of Michael’s massive basement. “He wasn’t half as prepared for the apocalypse as you are.”

“Bet he didn’t have facts that the man in charge would be bringing a holy war to his doorstep, neither,” Michael said with a sniff. “Stock up, I got plenty. Here, son—you look like you want something like this.”

The wolf-like man pulled a black metal crossbow off the wall and handed it to Jayce. The blond hellhound gingerly accepted, regarding the deadly looking weapon with furrowed brows.

“You got poison arrows, smoke arrows, all the elements—had a witch on my side once, she could cook up some nasty elemental spells—steel-tipped, exploding, snare, and basilisk blood.”

“What does the basilisk blood do?” Jayce asked.

“Heals your friend once they get stoned,” Michael said with a grin. “Just aim for a leg or a shoulder. Tips are hard enough to pierce the stone layer; but make sure you don’t get ’em in the eye.”

“Whoa. Healing arrows.” Jayce whistled in awe.

“What’s this?” Kai held up a potato-gun-looking-thing with a crystal on the front.

“Launcher,” Michael said. “UV bombs, magic bombs, energy balls, explosives. Hell, I got all kinds of things.”

“Super stealthy,” Kingston said sarcastically. Then he considered and held out his hand. “Lemme have it.”