Part 25 (1/2)

DOWN, DOWN, DOWN WE WENT, deep into the bowels of the earth, past the seven circles of h.e.l.l and beyond, into a realm of utter hopelessness. They tied our hands behind us along the way, and while I was lucid enough to remember the Mythbusters trick of pressing my wrists together sideways so that I would have some slack later on, it seemed a futile effort. There was no way we were going to come out of this mess alive.

The underground complex had been expanded since Sebastian's escape, and we pa.s.sed through whole levels that weren't on his map. The upper ones looked fairly prosaic: Add a few windows and they could have been part of any Victorian manor. But the further down we descended, the less normal things looked. Below the residential area was a maze of shadowy hallways that were half Gothic in style, half . . . something else. Below that was a level finished entirely in black marble-floor and walls and ceilings and doors-all of it. The faces of the humans who stood guard there gleamed like polished skulls in the fetterlight as they waved us through. I thought I saw ghosts in the lower levels as well, or things that looked a lot like ghosts: wisps of smoke that were formless when you looked at them directly, but resolved into quasi-human shapes in the corner of your eye when you focused on something else.

For the final part of our journey through h.e.l.l we were squeezed into a cage-like elevator, whose rope-and-pulley mechanism was visible through the bars. G.o.d alone knew what was powering the thing. Given what we'd learned about this world, I figured there was probably a room full of abbies on treadmills, laboring endlessly in the darkness so that their masters wouldn't have to climb the stairs.

As soon as the elevator door was shut, the iron cage dropped out from under us, and for a moment it seemed as if the earth had swallowed us whole.

And then, at last, it was over. The cage stopped moving and our captors shoved us out of it, and I knew in my gut that the terrible journey had reached its end point.

We were in a cavern . . . or something that had once been a cavern, now adapted for the Shadowlords' use. Some of the natural features were still visible-undulating walls of glistening grey limestone, a few thick pillars that rose from floor to ceiling like ancient Greek columns-but most of the place had been slathered over with concrete, its gritty flow following the natural contours of the walls and floors. The result was disturbingly organic, as if some vast cave-creature had swallowed us whole, and we were now trekking through its innards.

They shoved us forward, and we stumbled to a place where alcoves with vertical iron bars across the openings lined both sides of the chamber. A sudden wave of panic overwhelmed me. They were going to lock us in, and leave us down here. In the caverns. In the dark.

I struggled vainly against my captors as they opened the door to one of the cells, throwing my body about in a desperate attempt to break free. Raw animal panic had taken over. Behind me, I heard someone else involved in an equally desperate scuffle, and then the sickening thud of flesh striking flesh.

But we were all as helpless as fish in a net, and eventually the three of us were thrown inside a single cell and the door was slammed shut behind us. The loud metallic clang resonated through the cavernous s.p.a.ce, drowning out the softer click of the lock as it closed.

They left then, without further word. I lay on the concrete floor where I had fallen, trembling as I waited for the moment they would turn out the lights and leave us to the mercy of the cavern's suffocating darkness. I didn't think I could handle it. But endless seconds pa.s.sed without that happening, and when I realized that the lights were going to stay on, some of my sanity returned.

I struggled to a sitting position and looked around. Our cell was one of half a dozen fas.h.i.+oned out of natural alcoves that flanked a long, narrow chamber. If you stood in the middle of the chamber you might be able to see into all the cells, but in our current position the undulating walls of the cavern obscured much from view. The only lighting came from a handful of glow lamps embedded in the ceiling and, because of their positioning, some parts of the alcoves were lost in shadow. I peered into each in turn, struggling to see if anyone was inside them. If this was the place where prisoners were kept, logic said my brother must be here. But nothing moved in the darkness. No one called my name.

”C'mon, girl, let's get these ropes off.”

Someone took hold of my shoulder and tried to pull me back from the bars. I shook him off.

Across from us was a long, narrow cell whose depths were mostly in shadow. I squinted to shut out the glare of the nearest light, willing my eyes to adjust to the darkness. It seemed to me there was a deeper shadow near the back that didn't quite match the rest of the rock, but it was still. Too still. A live person would have been moving by now, wouldn't he? We'd made enough commotion on our way in to wake the dead.

”Tommy?” I called out tentatively. There was no response.

So I yelled the name. Why not? What did we have to lose anymore, by being heard? My voice resonated back from all the empty s.p.a.ces surrounding us. I could hear an edge of hysteria in the echo.

The shadow stirred. My breath caught in my throat.

I heard Rita and Devon come to the bars, but I didn't turn to look at them; my eyes were fixed wholly on the figure moving toward us. It paused in the darkness, and I saw blue light glint from its eyes as it blinked. Then suddenly it lurched toward us, with the kind of inarticulate cry a wounded animal might make.

Please G.o.d, let it be Tommy. Please.

My brother hit the bars of his cell with the force of a bird flying into a plate gla.s.s window. His skin was pale and his eyes were grey pits of exhaustion-he looked like death warmed over-but he was alive. Alive! I wanted to reach out to him, but the ropes on my wrists kept me from even trying, so I pressed my face between the bars of my own cell, wanting to get as close to him as I possibly could.

”Jesse!” he rasped. His voice was hoa.r.s.e, as if he'd been sick. ”I knew you would come for me! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”

”Hey, kid,” I whispered back. Ever since the night I'd watched the video on his computer I'd dreamed of what I would say at this moment, but now that it was finally here I was almost too overwhelmed to speak. ”I couldn't leave you here alone, could I? Who would help me figure out my video games?”

”It's you they want.” His voice cracked as he spoke. ”You know that, right? Something about your dreams.”

”Yeah,” I whispered. Shutting my eyes for a moment against the sudden tide of guilt. All that Tommy had been through in this terrible place had been because of me. ”I figured that out.”

”I didn't tell them anything. I figured that as long as they stayed focused on me they wouldn't go after you, so I kept feeding them stories. To give you time to rescue me . . .” The corner of his mouth twitched slightly. ”Of course, when I pictured that, I imagined you would be on the other side of the bars.”

Despite myself I smiled. ”d.a.m.n! I knew there was something we got wrong.”

”How long has it been?”

I sighed. ”A week, I think. I've lost track of time at this point.”

”A week? Jeez.” He shook his head. ”We are gonna be soooo grounded when we get home.”

I couldn't help but laugh, and then I cried, and then I laughed and cried some more. Eventually I slid down to the ground with tears pouring from my eyes, and when Devon and Rita finally got the ropes off my wrists I lowered my face into my hands and just let it all flow-all the sorrow, all the fear, and all the joy that I felt in discovering that, although my baby brother had been a prisoner of monsters for a week, he was still every bit as much of a snarky smarta.s.s as before. It was a good thing that there were bars between us at that moment, because if there hadn't been I would have grabbed him and hugged him so hard that all his anti-contact neuroses would have been squeezed out of him like toothpaste from a tube.

”Hey.” Devon prodded me. The urgency in his voice brought me back to myself. ”Someone's coming.”

I wiped my face with my sleeve and hurriedly got to my feet. I felt more strength in that moment than I had for days. Never mind the fact that we had no fetters and no plan. Whatever came at us now, Tommy and I would face it together.

Footsteps were approaching. One person, it sounded like. I drew in a deep breath, trying to steady my nerves. Then he entered the chamber, and I stiffened.

Isaac.

Rita spat out a curse as soon as she realized who it was; I'm not even sure it was in English. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her looking around for something to throw at him. Of course there was nothing. We were helpless.

I just glared at him. I wondered if he really grasped how much I hated him at that moment.

Calmly he looked toward Tommy's cell, like one would look at a caged animal in a zoo. ”So this is the infamous little brother? The one you risked your life to save?”

”Don't touch him,” I snarled.

He put up his hand to rea.s.sure me; it was the kind of gesture one would use to calm an angry dog. Then something seemed to draw his notice. He looked around the chamber, startled. It was as if he expected something to be hovering in the air, that wasn't there. ”There are no shades . . . ?”

”You mean the ghost things?” Tommy asked. ”I sent them away.”

The look of surprise on Isaac's face gave me perverse satisfaction.

”What do you want with us?” I demanded. ”Haven't you done enough damage? What's left to do now, gloat? The fact that I can't get out of this cage to wring your neck doesn't mean I'm going to jump through hoops to amuse you.”

He turned toward us. Well, he turned toward me, really. I got the sense Rita and Devon were peripheral to him.

”This place isn't the same as it was when the Green Man was prisoner here,” he said quietly. ”There are things stored here now that are of great value to the Shadows . . . and anything that we value, the shades of the dead guard for us. You would never have seen such sentinels, nor heard them coming. You would have walked through halls that seemed utterly empty, confident in your secrecy, while in fact your every move was watched and reported upon. And if you had dared to enter those places which are off limits to the living-they're never marked as such, because those who live here know all about them-you'd have been killed on the spot. Not captured. Not questioned. Just killed. Maybe then your dead spirits would have been bound in service to the Guild.” He glanced at Tommy. ”Maybe you'd even have been forced to stand guard over your brother, so that no one else could save him.”

”Great,” I growled. ”So everything was hopeless from the start. Things could be much worse than they are now. Got that. Thanks so much for the update.” I glared. ”Anything more?”

He looked back at me. There was a turmoil in the back of his eyes that I could not put a name to. ”You couldn't have gotten down here on your own,” he said. The volume of his voice had dropped; no one outside this chamber would be able to hear what he was saying now. ”The Shadows had to bring you down here themselves. There was no other way.”

Devon drew in a sharp breath. ”Are you saying . . . that you arranged all this . . . to help us?”

”Bulls.h.i.+t!” Rita spat. ”You played us. You won. It's over. Go back to your friggin' undead playmates and leave us the h.e.l.l alone.”

But I was looking in his eyes. I saw what was there.

”Show me,” I whispered.