Naomi remained by the oval door at the bottom of the curling stairway they’d followed down into the hollow earth. Judging from the number of steps he’d followed, Warren felt certain they stood at least a hundred feet below the surface. Whoever constructed the room had been serious about keeping it hidden.
“There may be more traps down here,” Naomi said.
“I know.” Warren glanced at Lilith. She walked at his side.
“When I was buried here,” Lilith said, “this room held no traps. The architects who built this place didn’t expect anyone to get this far.”
“That doesn’t mean they didn’t put traps in,” Naomi said. “You didn’t mention that hammer one upstairs.”
“I didn’t know about that one.”
“And what do you mean, when you were buried here?”
Cautiously, Warren moved across the floor. He took time to examine the space with his senses. This time he used his arcane powers as well.
Nothing triggered his alarms. But the wall on the opposite side of the room drew him. The weakening glow of his torch revealed a number of beautiful and deadly images carved into the wall. But in these images, Lilith fought only monsters.
She lifted her hand, and an incandescent blue light glowed brightly enough to fill the room. The return of her powers bothered Warren. For months he’d grown used to her being powerless. She’d needed him. Now, potentially, she didn’t. The thought that she might try to relieve him of the silver hand he wore lurked in the back of his mind.
“I was a hero to them,” Lilith said. “They worshipped me.”
“Because you killed the demons that offended you,” Naomi said.
“Yes. Until they found out I was one of the demons.” Lilith smiled more brightly. “Then they feared me. Of the two, I have to be honest: fear was far stronger. It always is.” She turned to Warren and stroked his face with the fingers of her free hand.
Warren felt as if a spider glided across his skin. He struggled to keep from stepping back away from her.
“I miss the fear I was able to inspire in others,” Lilith said quietly. Her eyes locked with Warren’s. “Do you fear me, Warren?”
He wanted to lie to her and tell her that no, she didn’t frighten him. But that wasn’t true, and he was certain she’d know if he lied.
“Yes.”
Lilith laughed aloud and drew her hand back. “Good,” she said. “You should be afraid of me. Very afraid.”
“I am,” Warren said.
“Good. Fear will keep you alive much longer,” Lilith told him. “As long as you and I are in agreement, you will be safe with me.”
That wasn’t true, and Warren knew it. He was safe only as long as she needed him. The instant that changed, the minute she found someone else to do the things she asked him to do, she’d turn on him.
But not until then, Warren told himself. Until then, learn and grow strong.
“Why are we here?” Naomi asked.
Lilith frowned at the woman. “I need you to reclaim my mortal shell. The flesh that I once wore.”
“You’re not a ghost,” Naomi said.
“No.” Lilith ran a hand along her lean body. “I am power incarnate, that which lives on after the body has died. If I were dead, I’d be drawn back to the Well of Midnight to be recast and born again. Nothing is ever created or destroyed.” She paused and turned to survey the wall. “But I would not lose myself in that place. I am Named. And I will be greater than I am now.”
Warren held his torch up and inspected the pictographs on the walls. All of them were of Lilith. Some of them showed her in a large forest area with a man. They stood in water up to their hips, both of them naked. Fish in the water clustered around them. Birds in the air hovered by their heads. Large animals lay along the bank of the river or lake they were in. Small animals occupied the spaces between or hung in the trees.
“Is this—” Warren couldn’t bring himself to say it.
“The Garden?” Lilith smiled. “Yes. Before that troublesome woman showed up. Things then were not so bad. It’s only after I taught evil to the children that your species became so chaotic and hard to control. I suppose I’m partly to blame for that.”
There were other images. Warren thought he remembered some of them from the Bible stories he’d learned while in foster care, but he wasn’t sure what the artist intended.
“Your body is in this room?” Naomi asked.
“Yes.” Lilith approached one of the walls, studied it a moment, then put a palm against the stone. “This one.”
Warren joined her and inspected the wall. “If I’m going to take that down, I’m going to need a sledge.”
“There is a sequence…here.” Lilith pointed, one at a time, to four different stones. None of the stones in the wall appeared to be the same size. They’d been stacked so that they worked together, then mortared between.
Following Lilith’s prompted cues, Warren pressed the sequence of stones. Something clicked deep within the wall. He stepped back and held the torch high, trying to guess which direction an unpleasant surprise might come from.
Instead, a section of the stone wall jutted out a couple of inches.
“Behind this wall,” Lilith said. “You’ll have to move it the rest of the way.”
“Bring that torch over here,” Warren directed Naomi.
Reluctantly, she brought her torch over and shone it against the wall.
Warren pocketed his own torch and slipped the fingers of both hands through the crack in the wall. He expected to pull back bloody stumps. At least, on one hand. He thought the metal one might hold up. He hooked his fingers behind the wall and pulled. The hidden door had to weigh hundreds of pounds and was hard to move. Then, inexorably, it moved by inches at a time and
