Conflux, p.12
Conflux, page 12
“Maybe I should buy a summer home here,” I joked.
Aurora giggled, but Ruen gave me a warning look. For all we knew, the man hiding behind glamour might be one of the creatures who would rob, kill and eat us.
Chapter Twenty-Five
LIKE ALL OF THE DWELLINGS down here, the small house was made out of stone. It was cramped and the ceiling was far too low. My head almost brushed against it and I had to be careful not to bang my head on the light. We stood in a small living room, with a kitchen to the right and the dining room to the left. A hallway led to the bedrooms and bathroom. The furniture looked like it came directly from a human store. He even had a TV. Bright rugs covered the floor, adding splashes of color.
“I’m Ungul,” he said in greeting. “It’s unusual to see a vampire, a demon and,” he paused to take a long look at me. “I’m sorry, my dear, but I’m not sure what you are.”
“I’m Saige and we’re a strange trio,” I agreed without telling him what he wanted to know. “I can sense you’re a strong magic user, but you’re not human.” I’d never met his kind before, that much I knew.
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he said slyly.
“I can’t change forms,” I said with a shrug. “At least not in this dimension.”
A speculative look came and went so fast that I almost didn’t see it.
“You’re a goblin, aren’t you?” Aurora said.
“How did you know?” he asked in surprise.
“I’ve met your kind before,” she replied.
“Can you lift the curse that was placed on the girl?” Ruen asked. Neither he, nor Aurora had introduced themselves. I probably shouldn’t have either, but Ungul had told us his name and it had seemed rude not to reciprocate.
“I can lift the curse, but I’ll want to take a closer look at that dagger first,” he said craftily.
I delved into my kill-bag and took the dagger out. He reached for it, but I yanked it back. “No touching until after you’ve upheld your end of the bargain,” I said sternly.
Ungul heaved an almost imperceptible sigh, then leaned in to examine it. “It’s old,” he said in a musing tone. “The craftmanship is exquisite. I can sense it was owned by a dragon for many centuries.” He gave me a sharp look at that. “You work for Lord Gilden,” he said almost accusingly.
“We’re bounty hunters,” I agreed. “He’s willing to give you this dagger in exchange for lifting the curse from our friend.”
“Come here, girl,” he requested, motioning for Aurora to move closer.
She took a few steps towards him, with Ruen at her back. The leech loomed over her protectively as the goblin scanned her with magic. “It’s going to take a lot of energy to dispel the curse,” he said, talking to himself rather than us. “I’ll need to drink a potion to boost my power first. Take a seat and I’ll be back soon.”
He gestured at the couch and armchairs in his living room, then scurried down the hall. He vanished into one of the rooms to prepare his potion. Figuring the room was his conjuring den, I ambled over to the couch and plonked down onto it. It was nicer than my couch and was far more comfortable.
“So, he’s a goblin?” I asked, assuming Ungul could hear me, since most supernatural creatures had exceptional hearing.
“I can’t see beneath his glamour, but he smells like a goblin,” Aurora confirmed, taking a seat next to me.
Ruen sank down onto an armchair and looked around dourly. He sniffed in derision at the décor, but kept his scathing comments to himself. I’d never seen his apartment in Drake’s skyscraper, but I assumed it was nicely furnished.
“You’re not looking as gaunt as usual,” I said as I studied the vamp.
“I fed before I picked you two up for our meeting with Lord Gilden,” he said.
“I thought you’d wait until we began our mission,” I said teasingly. “You won’t need to restrain yourself when we get there.”
His pupils dilated at the thought of all the mayhem he could cause. “Our employer ordered me to feed before we left, to avoid any diplomatic problems,” he said stiffly.
That meant Drake didn’t want him to vamp out and murder all of the gate guards if it could be avoided. “Good call,” I said in amusement. We wouldn’t know what we would be facing when we stepped through the magical portal. Once our business with Ungul was done, we would get to find out what the second realm and its inhabitants were like.
It only took Ungul a few minutes to brew and drink his potion. When he returned, he’d dropped his glamour. “Did you shrink?” I asked before I could stop myself.
Now only four feet tall, his skin had a greenish tinge to it. His nose was long and sharp and his teeth and ears were pointed. The only thing that hadn’t changed were his clothes.
“This is what goblins look like in this dimension without our glamour,” Ungul said, taking no offense. If this was what they looked like here, I could imagine how ugly they were in the underworld. He felt stronger now, so I figured his potion must have worked. “Give me your hands, my dear,” he said to Aurora, crossing to stand in front of her.
“Lord Gilden won’t be happy if anything untoward happens to his employee,” Ruen said threateningly. Aurora didn’t work for Drake, but we were pretending she did.
Ungul gave him an impatient look. “I’m well aware that dragon shifters are not to be trifled with.”
He wiggled his fingers, so Aurora reached out to take his hands. “Will it hurt?” she asked in a small voice.
“Did it hurt when the curse was cast?” Ungul asked.
She nodded, grimacing at the long-ago memory. “My body was forced into an unnatural shape. It hurt just as much changing to this form when I came to this dimension.”
He nodded in understanding. “I doubt it’ll hurt when I break the curse,” he said in a surprisingly kindly tone. “I’m guessing your current form isn’t vastly different from your demon form.”
She looked down at herself and gave a small nod. “It’s far more similar to it than my cursed body was.” She wouldn’t be transforming at all, since demons couldn’t change into their true forms here, at least not completely and only if they were strong.
Ruen shifted impatiently and the goblin flicked a look at him. “I’ll begin my spell now,” he said, then he began to speak in a foreign language.
I felt his magic swell as he chanted the curse-breaking spell. Sweat popped up on his forehead and I could feel the effort he was putting into it. His voice rose in volume and Aurora began to shake. I was tempted to put my arm around her to comfort her, but I was scared I’d get caught up in the spell.
Uttering the last line of his spell, Ungul poured magic into the sex demon. Aurora let out a strangled noise, then fainted. I caught her before she could fall off the couch and felt residual magic from the enchantment sink into me. The goblin staggered over to an armchair before he could collapse. “That took even more effort than I’d expected,” he admitted shakily. “Whomever cast that curse on the girl is far more powerful than I am.”
The remnants of the spell vanished inside me. I hoped it wasn’t going to have consequences later down the line. What little magic I possessed was dormant, so hopefully it wouldn’t have any effect on me.
Aurora stirred, snapping my attention back to her. “Are you okay?” I asked. Even Ruen was leaning forward in concern.
“I think so,” Aurora said, rubbing her temples with shaky fingers. “I feel different, as if a weight has been lifted off me.”
“That was the curse,” Ungul said, looking worn and weary. “Tell Lord Gilden the payment will need to be higher next time if he expects me to rid any more of his employees of dark enchantments like that.”
At his unsubtle hint that I hadn’t paid him yet, I made sure Aurora wasn’t going to slide off the couch, then reached for my kill-bag. I took the gold dagger out and tossed it to the goblin. He almost fumbled it, then greedily clutched it to his chest. “Thanks for your help,” I said. “We’ll tell Lord Gilden about what a good job you did.”
Eyes crawling all over his new prize, he nodded. “You should go now,” he said absently. “I need to rest.”
“So do I,” Aurora muttered. “I feel like I could sleep for a week.”
Ruen and I exchanged worried looks at that comment. Drake expected us to travel to the second realm tonight. Now we weren’t sure if Aurora would even be up to making the journey through the portal.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I LED THE WAY TO THE door, supporting Aurora with my arm around her shoulders. Ungul unlocked the door with a wave of his hand, then locked it once we’d exited. Ruen took the lead, using our scents to find the way back to the marketplace. Aurora slowly regained her strength during the journey through the tunnels. By the time we reached the cemetery, she was far more alert.
“How do you feel?” I asked as we left the mausoleum. “Does anything else seem different, apart from the weight being lifted from you?”
“Not really,” she said with a frown. “I feel better now, but I won’t know if the spell worked until we reach the second realm.”
“If the goblin tricked us, Lord Gilden will ensure Ungul pays for his treachery,” Ruen said darkly.
“The goblin is more dangerous than he looks,” I warned him. “He might be small, but his magic is strong.”
“I’m going to need to pack a bag before we leave Nexus,” Aurora said, fretting about our mission.
“You could have packed one before we left, if we’d been given a heads-up about our visit to the catacombs,” I said, glaring daggers at Ruen’s back.
He turned to scowl at me. “Lord Gilden doesn’t tell me everything, Ms. Sterling,” he said defensively.
“That’s because you’re a bloodthirsty psycho,” I muttered too quietly for him to hear me.
“I’ll drive you home so you can pack, then we’ll need to visit Lord Gilden again,” the vamp said as he unlocked his car.
“You should let me drive,” I said churlishly. “I could get us there in fifteen minutes. It’ll take you forty minutes to reach our apartment.”
“No one drives my car except me,” Ruen said flatly. My complaint about his agonizingly slow pace was enough to prompt him to drive at the speed limit for once.
“I could have driven my car,” Aurora said. “You haven’t been for a ride in it yet. You’ll love it!”
Ruen gave her an indulgent smirk. “I’m sure I will.”
She launched into an animated conversation, telling him all about her trips to visit mom while we were out on our jobs. He listened without talking, nodding every now and then. I only listened with half an ear and assumed the vampire was doing the same. We both knew she was nervous about returning to the underworld. If the curse really had been broken, she would have a very different form on the other side of the portal. I couldn’t wait to see what she looked like. If we didn’t have a possibly deadly task ahead of us, I would almost look forward to it.
Aurora wanted me to help her pack when Ruen pulled into our lot. I suggested she bring jeans and t-shirts, as well as spare underwear. The clothes would transform to the underworld’s equivalent once we left our world. Once her pack was full, I left my kill-bag behind and she removed her wig. We hurried back to the bloodsucker’s car. We both took our keys with us, since they would make the trip to and from the other dimension without being altered much.
Ruen drove us to Drake’s tower again and we took the lift up to his office. The same two shifters who’d escorted us to the first portal were waiting. The werelions nodded at us politely and one of them took the letter our boss handed him. It looked the same as the original letter, with a red wax seal of a dragon on it.
“I can sense your visit to the catacombs was a success,” the lord said, eyes searching for my kill-bag and the dagger he’d reluctantly given me.
“The payment you gave us was well-received,” I said, being just as cryptic as he was. He didn’t want his minions to know what we were up to. The fewer people who knew what our real purpose was for visiting the underworld was, the greater our chance of success would be.
The last thing we needed was for rumors to fly ahead of us. If the overlord caught wind that we were on our way, he’d set a trap for sure. Especially if he was aware that his colleague from the first realm was dead. We hadn’t gone through the gate with the intention of killing the ruler. I doubted the second overlord would believe us, though. Even if he was aware that the giant had done the deed, he’d probably still blame us for it.
Drake lowered his head in momentary grief that the dagger he’d given me was gone forever. Ruen had probably filled him in on our visit to the goblin while Aurora had been packing her bag. He wouldn’t have had time to go into full detail about it. “You’d best get going,” the dragon said after he’d regained his poise. “Try to stay out of trouble and stick to the plan,” he added as the werelion tucked the envelope into his jacket pocket.
“We will, my lord,” Ruen vowed. “I take it my restrictions will be lifted once we step through the gate?”
“The same rules from your first visit to the underworld still apply,” the weredragon confirmed.
Ruen could barely contain his feral grin as our boss herded us to the elevator. “Are you going to wish us luck again?” I asked as one of the lions pushed the call button.
“You’ll most likely be facing more danger this time,” Drake said, scanning us in turn. “You’ll need skill, tenacity and fortitude to return unscathed.”
“I have all three qualities, so it’s just as well you’re sending me on this mission,” I joked.
“You won’t need Aurora or me to accompany you then,” Ruen said snidely. Even beneath his scowl, I could tell he was practically rubbing his hands together in glee.
“Be very careful during your mission,” Drake warned us as the elevator arrived. “Do your best to avoid causing any diplomatic problems.”
That meant he wanted us to stay as far away from the overlord as possible. We nodded in unison, then stepped into the elevator when the door opened. Gold eyes flitted from Ruen, to Aurora, then locked on me. He seemed to be on the verge of saying something else, but the door slid shut before he could speak.
“You should leave your car here,” one of the lions suggested. “We’ll take you to the gate in our vehicle.”
Ruen’s car would be far safer here, so we grabbed our backpacks and climbed into the shifters’ dark gray SUV. This time, they drove us to a residential area. We were in a suburb I hadn’t been to before, since it was on the far side of Nexus from where I’d grown up.
“This is a weird place for a portal to be,” I said when we pulled up in front of an ordinary looking house.
“Structures like this were built to hide the doorways as Nexus grew larger,” our driver said. He was the same guy who’d almost crashed when he’d watched Aurora getting dressed in my t-shirt on our way back from the first realm. He’d kept his eyes on the road this time, since she hadn’t been naked.
“That makes sense,” I said, trying to hide my nerves.
The house was a typical one-story standalone structure. It looked just like every other building in the street. I could feel the portal even before one of our escorts knocked on the door. One of their colleagues opened the door to let us in.
Aurora crowded in close to me and slipped her hand into mine. Ruen’s expression was stoic, but his body was tense. “Do you want to borrow my knives again?” I asked.
“Lord Gilden doesn’t want us to be armed when we step through the gate,” he said, flicking a longing look at my pack. “It might give the guards the wrong idea and they might not believe we’re trade envoys.”
We were sticking to the same story we hadn’t had a chance to use the first time around. “Okay,” I said in agreement. “The night is wasting, so we’d better get a move on.”
The house was furnished in modern, yet worn furniture. Guards were stationed here permanently, so they had appliances in the kitchen and a TV in the living room. Our escorts led us to the attached garage. The door was made of dense metal and had to be unlocked with a key. The werelion handed Drake’s envelope with the seal on it to me. I stuffed it into my backpack with a nod of thanks.
Blue light blazed as soon as the door was pulled open. I glanced around to see the garage didn’t have any windows and the roller door was just for show. The walls were a lot stronger than they looked from the outside. Ruen immediately shielded his face with his arm. With Aurora clinging to one hand, I hooked my other hand through the vampire’s arm, then rushed at the portal. Shoving the leech ahead of me, I pulled my bestie along behind me. We left our world behind and were transported to the second realm of the underworld.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
AGAIN, I FELT SOMETHING drastic happen to my body as I tingled from head to toe. It felt like I was being dipped in ice, while being set on fire at the same time, but it wasn’t particularly painful. Ruen and Aurora were far more affected than I was. The vampire doubled over, groaning in pain. My bestie hissed in agony as her body underwent its own transformation.
I tugged the pair away from the blazing light of the magical doorway and ducked behind something big and blurry. Hoping it was a tree and not the leg of a colossal giant, I blinked my eyes until they cleared. “What the hell?” I murmured when I examined myself. My voice sounded clogged and strangely phlegmy.
Clumps of a black seaweed-like substance hung from my arms, legs and body. My skin was dark green and was covered in thick scales. My clothes had turned into raggedy black sackcloth. I still had my backpack, but it had changed into a cloth sack again. I held my hands up and spread my fingers to find webbed skin between them. Even my fingernails had transformed. They were now long, sharp and dark green. I looked down at my feet to find they were webbed and possessed long toenails that almost looked like claws.
