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Chapter Twenty-Two
Ven
My heart pounds as we approach the lab. It looks every bit the villain’s lair. Sharp lines which jut out unnaturally from the cliffside. Drab gray concrete blocks, no windows. It sits right at the peak of the mountain, and a strip of cleared land leads up to it. It’s for some sort of aerial tram that whooshes up and down the mountainside. No doubt the primary method of getting their drug down to the cove.
Ryder leads us around to the side of the fortress. The ground is incredibly steep and it’s slow going since we’re pretty much climbing up the mountain. A river rushes alongside the building, cascading down the hill. I’m not sure what Ryder’s looking for, but he seems to know where he’s going. Or have a plan, at any rate. I really hope he’s being honest about his ability to carry on. If anything happens to him, I’m not going to be able to forgive myself.
Something putrid carries on the breeze down to us and I nearly gag. “God, what is that smell?”
“Exactly what I’m looking for,” Ryder says.
“What are you talking about?”
He turns back and winks. “Our way inside.”
It comes into view, then, a large concrete basin jutting out from the building. Two demons are carting large bags in and out of a doorway beyond and dumping them inside. I realize what it is: the trash dumpster. I don’t even want to know why it smells so awful. It’s unnaturally terrible.
I follow Ryder as we climb the remainder of the way up the steep incline and carefully cross the rushing water of the river. Everything above us is just a sheer cliff rising straight to the peak of the mountain. He reaches the corner of the concrete basin and then pulls me up behind him. The demons stop and stare at us for a moment, and I freeze, too. Then Ryder sends a pulse of his lust magic across the basin. I can tell the instant it hits them, because they both let out moans of ecstasy and their knees buckle. The next moment, there’s a very intense demon make-out session happening.
Ryder turns to me and grins devilishly. “Let’s go.”
We skirt around the rim of the basin and reach the walkway near the door. The demons don’t even notice us as we pass them. They’re way too busy grunting and pawing and thrusting to take any notice.
“Oh. Wow.” I see horns and tails going in places they really don’t belong.
“Don’t kink-shame,” Ryder says with a wink. He grabs my hand, and we slide in through the door.
A long corridor stretches before us. The floor is concrete, the walls are concrete. The fluorescent lights overhead are spaced far apart, creating patches of stark brightness amidst the dim. Ryder walks swiftly, confidently. A prickle of magic moves around him like heat lightning, and I have mine at the ready, too. When we reach an intersection in the hallway, he pauses. We can go left, right, or straight.
Far ahead, a group of people enter the hallway. Ryder grabs my hand and yanks me down the hallway to the left before they see us. I couldn’t tell much from the brief glimpse of them, but they didn’t look like demons. They’d seemed perfectly ordinary. Witches, warlocks, or vampires, perhaps? And what about the leaders of the Night Guild—are they on site or somewhere else? I sincerely hope it’s the latter. Surely as powerful as they are, they aren’t spending their time overseeing the dirty work.
Before I can think on it more, Ryder opens a door to our left and yanks me inside. It’s pitch black, and my heart races for a moment before he nudges me in the ribs. “Make some light, witch.”
I glower. “How did you know there weren’t people in here?”
“No auras,” he says. “And no smells of magic.”
I hold up my hand and create a ball of white light in my palm. It illuminates a large supply closet. Not just any supplies, but medical gear. Ryder strides across the space and takes two things that look like Hazmat suits off a rack. He hands one to me.
Within a couple minutes we have the suits on over our clothing. There’s only a small clear plastic window over my face that I can see out through. It feels claustrophobic and it smells like plastic and chemicals. I wrinkle my nose and sniffle.
“You look gorgeous,” Ryder says with a grin.
“Shut. Up.”
We head back out into the hallway and Ryder gestures for us to continue left down the hall.
“Why this way?” I whisper.
“Just following my gut,” he responds.
The building is clearly mostly subterranean, because the hall stretches on so long it’s got to be delving into the mountain. We walk for so long I wonder if we’re going to come out the other side. There are no other doors. Why all this space? What lies on either side of this never-ending hallway?
A hallway which eventually dead-ends at an elevator. There is no up button. Only down. My heart sinks and dread roils in my stomach. Ryder reaches out and pushes the button. The doors slide open, and we step inside. As they close back behind us, Ryder and I look at each other. And then we begin our descent into the earth. A descent which lasts for a long time. The elevator goes down for a full sixty seconds. When it finally stops, and the doors open again, the sight before us takes my breath away.
We’re standing in a huge cavern. Stalactites hang down from the ceiling, pillars of rock rise from the floor, and rivers of lava can be seen far in the distance. The blast of heat nearly knocks me off my feet. It feels like I’m standing on the sun. Or in Hell itself.
Which, of course, is exactly the point.
