I double-checked the bathroom and bedroom just to ensure that no one was here, then moved back to the kitchenette and propped myself against the small table. Despite the fact that the worst of my wounds had been sealed by the antiseptic spray, blood still trickled down my back. I wondered briefly if Jerry would smell it and decide to investigate. It would mess things up if he did.
After what seemed an eternity, the creak of floorboards and heavy—almost drunken—steps eventually began to invade the silence. They drew closer and closer, then paused just outside the doorway. Tension crawled through me. I held my breath, waiting for the moment when our plan went to hell and Jerry either ran or came at me.
For several seconds, nothing happened. I had the image of him standing there, nostrils flaring as he drew in the scent of blood and listened to the rapid beating of a heart. Mine, to be exact.
Whether he was actually doing that I couldn’t say, and after several minutes of inaction, his door creaked and he stepped inside.
I reached for Amaya, then stopped. Would the Rakshasa be able to sense her energy? I had no idea, so I left her sheathed. In this sort of situation, it was better to be safe than sorry. The decision, however, did not please my sword, and she hissed and grumbled in the back of my mind.
I padded across to the door and opened it slightly. There wasn’t anything to see in the hall or anything to hear in the room opposite. But as I stood there, an ill wind began to gather. It stirred the hairs on the back of my neck, making them stand on end. I shivered, my fists clenched so tightly against the need to draw my sword that my fingernails were digging into my palms. I might have felt stronger—safer—when she was in my hand, but the energy that dripped off her surely wouldn’t go unnoticed by a creature born to the world of spirits rather than flesh.
The wind gathered strength, filling the air with such darkness that it became harder and harder to breathe. And the desire to rush into the room opposite to see what was happening warred with the need to remain safe, but I knew I would only hinder rather than help. I had to let Azriel do what he’d been trained to do.
I opened the door a little farther. No sound came from the room opposite. Jerry might have entered, but he was no longer moving around. Maybe the poison the Rakshasa had administered when she’d slashed his back had taken full effect, and he simply lay there, waiting for the approach of his doom.
And it was certainly coming.
The sense of menace in the air was so sharp it felt like a knife cutting through my soul.
Then, down at the far end of the hall, something moved.
I froze, breathing labored and Amaya screaming furiously in my head. The movement wasn’t repeated. My gaze darted through the shadows, but I couldn’t see the threat that every sense—and my sword—said was there.
And then I realized why.
The threat wasn’t in the hall.
It was behind me.
I swung, but it was already far too late.
A smothering blanket of darkness fell around me, and pain exploded. Then there was nothing, simply nothing.
Chapter 13
Waking was an exercise in agony. Every muscle, bone, and fiber ached with a fierceness that had my head spinning and my heart racing. Even my hair felt like it was on fire.
For a minute I wondered if I’d somehow ended up in the hands of the Aedh again, but this pain was different from the torture they’d put me through. This wasn’t the pain that came from a spirit being pulled apart. Rather, it was from something more mundane—like a body that had been beaten and abused to the nth degree.
But the blood that rode the air suggested I wasn’t any more hurt now than when the Rakshasa had captured me. She obviously hadn’t had me for dinner, and while I was naturally grateful for that, it was a fact that only ratcheted up the levels of fear. She was saving me for something, and I had a bad, bad feeling I really didn’t want to know what.
As my mind crawled toward greater awareness, I realized I was lying on something cold and uneven. Stone rather than concrete. My breathing was labored, suggesting there wasn’t quite enough oxygen, and the air itself tasted bitter and decayed.
There was also a strange buzzing in my head, and it seemed oddly—darkly—blanketing.
Frowning, I reached down inside and called to the Aedh. Power surged, but so did pain, a warning that I was still too close to my limits. I ignored it, and called to the change regardless. It surged through me, breaking down skin and muscle as it began the shift from human to Aedh. Then that strange buzzing sharpened, becoming so fierce it felt like nails were being slammed into my head, and the energy stumbled, then receded, leaving me bound by flesh rather than a being of energy.
Whatever that strange buzzing was, I couldn’t change while it was near.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I cracked open an eye. Darkness met my gaze, and it held an odd sense of heaviness, as if the weight of the world pressed down upon this place. And if that were true—if we were deep underground somewhere—then yet again Azriel wouldn’t find me.
Which meant I was alone.
Fear swarmed, so thick that for several minutes it threatened to choke me. I might have been trained to fight by the best of them, but I’d never been prepared for a situation like this.
Alone not, came the alien voice that was my sword. Am here.