I was shoved into a pair of slimy black arms. Pushing a pulse of Light into the demon, it screeched and let me go. I stabbed my dagger backwards, ramming it into the side of one of the others.
Damn, it was hard to tell these things apart—they all looked exactly the same.
I ducked under a swinging set of claws and gasped as I was struck in the lower back. The blow to my spine sent me reeling and I collapsed, losing my grip on the dagger.
A demon kicked me on the shoulder, and I was down for the count.
Staring up at the creatures, I began to regret a lot of things. Being an arsehole to pretty much everyone. Not following orders. Being an arrogant bitch. Thinking I was better than everyone else. Believing I was invincible. Basically, I was a big fat disappointment to two thousand years of Natural history.
Clawed arms held me down and I thrashed as the third demon looked at me. Its slimy black skin shimmered in the moonlight, and when it opened its mouth, the stench of sulphur made me gag.
“We will take it,” it hissed as its claws wrapped around my head. “It is ours.”
The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was the creature’s grotesque face as it lowered towards mine.
5
I woke some time later.
It was difficult to tell how long I’d been unconscious, but I found myself in almost complete darkness. I was lying on a damp rocky floor and the air was heavy with moisture. I shivered as cold seeped into my limbs.
Pushing to my elbows, I grimaced as my head throbbed. I reached for my Light…but it wasn’t there. I searched within myself and came back empty-handed.
No, no, no…
Where the hell was I? Wherever those demons had taken me, they had a way to cut me off from my power. This was bad.
As my eyes adjusted, I began to make out shapes in the shimmer of torchlight that filtered in from somewhere beyond. The first thing I noticed were the bars. I fumbled in the low light, my hands scrambling over another bar and another, before scraping against stone. I went back the other direction with the same results.
I was in a cage deep underground. The thing about dark places buried underneath millions of tones of dirt? No one could hear you scream. Trust demons to lurk in a shite heap like this.
I curled my hands around the bars and shook them. The metal rattled but didn’t budge.
Sinking back onto my arse, I grimaced when my side began to ache, joining my temples. I was beginning to understand just how much I’d been taking my Light for granted.
Small, loose stones littered the floor, and water trickled down fissures in the wall. The drip as droplets hit rocks echoed through the blackness. It was cold and the smell of damp and rot filled my nose.
I moved my gaze past the bars and gasped as I spotted an outline of a human form lurking in the shadows. Not sensing any Darkness, I scooted towards the bars and leaned against the rusty metal.
“Hey,” I hissed, realising a man was propped up against the wall. “Hey. Trent, is that you?”
He didn’t move. Reaching out, my fingers brushed against his arm and I recoiled. He was clammy to the touch and rigid…like a corpse. Beyond him, the shape of more bodies emerged from the gloom.
I gagged and huddled against the far corner of the cage. They were dead—just empty husks waiting for hosts.
It was a stockpile of faces hanging in a morbid wardrobe. So, what did that make me? A pet guinea pig?
It could only mean one thing…a greater demon lurked somewhere close. My situation had gone from bad to worse in t-minus one second.
Gathering my courage, I crawled back to the bars and prodded at the corpse. His head lolled to the side and I managed to make out his features. It wasn’t Trent. I couldn’t be certain about the others, but greater demons didn’t possess bodies that already had souls. Not usually.
A small shred of hope began to surface. If Trent wasn’t among them, maybe he’d escaped and warned the others at Camelot.
I settled back against the wall and rubbed my side. My ribs didn’t seem to be broken, but they sure felt like it. My head felt cracked and my temples throbbed, but there was nothing I could do to soothe the ache. My Light was dampened and whatever Darkness had flared inside me was gone.
Darkness.
We were all cured when Scarlett and Wilder had killed Mordred—the mutated Natural Human Convergence was synthesised from. My Light had returned and the Dark… A piece of demon mutation must lie dormant inside me. It was the only explanation and knowing I wasn’t entirely Natural made me want to hurl.
Movement made my heart leap and I pressed back into the corner as the bars scraped back. Two inky black demons slunk into my prison and bore down on me.
I kicked out to fend them off, but they just cackled in amusement as they grabbed my arms and dragged me across the gravel floor.
Once I was clear of the cage, I searched for my Light, but it was still out of reach. What the hell had they done to me? I thrashed, but all I managed to do was tire myself out.
By the time they hauled me into a cavern deeper in the cave system, I’d figured out resistance was futile. Without my Light, I was as feeble as a human, and my injuries stung like hell.
Finally, they threw me onto the ground, my cheek slamming against cold limestone.
My eyes widened as I realised who my appointment was with. A sigil had been carved into the floor in front of me and the indentations rippled with blood. I knew whatever was going to happen wasn’t going to be pretty. My fingers scraped against the rock as I tried to calm myself.
I’d been trained for
