“If she’s gone through, the Raziq would have her.”
“If they did, I daresay we would know.”
I frowned. “How? It’s not like we’re in constant contact with them.”
“No.” He paused, squeezed through a particularly nasty narrow section, scraping both his back and his chest in the process. “But Yeska would inform us. He has a predilection for flaunting his victories.”
I snorted. “The more I learn about the Aedh, the more their reputation for being unemotional beings bites the dust.”
“They are unemotional, at least in the sense that humans view emotions. Love, desire, caring – they are unnecessary states in the minds of the Aedh. Hence the reason they do not live in family units.”
“So how come they developed a completely different mind-set to the reapers? I mean, you’re both energy beings, so I would think you’d both have a similar evolution.”
“Just because one comes from the same source does not mean evolution will follow a similar path.”
“True enough.”
It was my turn to squeeze past the tight spot. The stones that had torn into Azriel’s back now tore into mine. I winced and tried sucking in my gut in the vague hope it would also suck in my breasts, with little success. Thankfully, my sweater bore the brunt of the damage, the stones snagging the fleece and tearing several large holes into it. I guess I should be thankful I wasn’t overly endowed in that area, because the damage would have no doubt involved a lot more skin.
The tunnel continued to narrow, making me wonder if anyone else but hellhounds actually used this. The Razan Jak and I had seen in the other tunnel certainly hadn’t been thin, and yet he’d had none of the scrapes on his body that we seemed to be collecting. Maybe he’d been using a special oil or something that allowed him to slip through.
“The end is nigh,” Azriel said, after a few more minutes.
“I hope you’re talking about the tunnel and not anything else,” I muttered, and yelped as a particularly nasty stone caught my left breast. I rose on my tiptoes, squeezing past it without damaging my other breast, then sighed in relief as the tunnel immediately widened.
We finally came out into a cavern that had been hacked out of the stone and earth by something other than nature itself. The floor was mainly stone, and in the middle of it stood two massive stones. They were more than eight feet tall and a good four feet in diameter at their base, but rising to an almost needlelike point at the top. Unlike the stones we’d discovered in the other tunnel, which were mostly gray, these two glowed as brightly as a harvest moon. The flames of the two swords sparked the quartz within the stones to life, and sent rainbow-colored flurries across the earthen walls. These stones, like the others, were etched with symbols and markings. It was a form of cuneiform, and an ancient and powerful language that people from a long dead civilization had once used to call the Aedh to Earth.
My gaze swept the cavern’s floor. Surprisingly, these stones weren’t guarded. Not by a protection circle, at any rate.
“Perhaps not,” Azriel said, “but there is some form of magic active here.”
He took a cautious step forward. Energy trembled across my skin, its touch light and yet oddly distasteful. “Azriel —”
“I know.” He raised a hand. Sullen orange sparks danced across his outstretched fingertips as he moved to the left, feeling out the barrier’s dimensions. Predictably, it ringed the two stones completely. “I cannot feel any sort of break in it.”
I crossed my arms. “Unsurprising given neither of us knows much about magic. Do you think she’s already been here?”>Then the witches in the circle sighed and rose. The oldest of the three stepped from the circle and stopped beside Rozelle.
“It has been completed,” she said, her voice etched with weariness. “The reaper’s energy has been woven into the spell surrounding this building. He may move about within freely, but must keep to flesh.”
“Thank you,” I said. “We appreciate —”
“Stop this person,” she cut in. “And that will be thanks enough.”
“We plan to.”
“Good.” She waved a hand toward the broken roller door. “You should enter and exit from that point. It was the weakest section of the spell, and therefore the easiest place to create our doorway.”
Azriel pressed two fingers against my spine, ushering me forward. I crawled into the loading bay yet again, then rose, dusting the dirt off my jeans as I scanned the area. Nothing had changed, and I couldn’t smell the shifter’s presence.
I glanced around as Azriel climbed to his feet. “The only way we can get into the tunnels is via that pit Jak and I fell into.”
“Given I must retain human form while in this building, our only option is to fall into it once again.”
“Or we could grab something heavy, and spring the trap first.”
“That would also work.” He paused. “There were chair remnants in the room next door, were there not?”
“Yes.”