CHAPTER NINE

  More Than One Way to Skin a Leshi

  The trails of the leshi converged, so thick and suffocating Lucifer could no longer sense Abigail and Hattie’s more subtle presence buried under the stench of heavier magics. The air was thick with the breath of rot and fermenting meat. There was a sickly-sweet quality to the air, though Lucifer didn’t see any signs of Fae traps.

  His mind raced to memories of the past, of finding people marinating in the bellies of giant plants. He prayed Abigail would not be fated to die this way.

  Kelsie gagged and complained about the odor. Lucifer kept walking. Their magic crowded around a hill. His eyes easily saw through the glamour that hid the entrance to the cave. Lucifer ducked under the mouth of the entrance and crouched so he wouldn’t hit his head. His foot snapped a brittle twig in half, the sound echoing into the distance ahead.

  Lucifer projected a small splinter of electricity into his palm, illuminating the space around him. The tunnel was made of limestone. He stepped on a mesh of roots intermingled with bones. A grinning skull rested on a perch of rocks. A shiver of apprehension wormed its way down Lucifer’s spine.

  The farther he continued into the space, the more the space widened. Soon he could stand upright, though he had to avoid the spikes of stalactites projecting from the ceiling. Kelsie’s feet scuffed over bits of broken rock behind him. Water dripped, echoing in the distance.

  “I don’t like this,” Kelsie whispered.

  Neither did he.

  The vast emptiness of the cavern stretched onward. His illumination no longer reached the ceiling and the walls. In some places he spotted roots that had forced themselves between cracks in the rocks. A mesh of vines covered the walls in a mess of fractals. The deeper they went, the colder it grew. High above them, holes pierced the ceiling. A patchwork of sunlight glittered on the ceiling like stars, illuminating a large cavern.

  Lucifer extinguished his light. He focused on the leshi energy. It was everywhere, leading off in different directions. Different tunnels, he realized. A concentration of dark-bright magic filled one corner. Lucifer avoided a puddle and headed toward the energy.

  A gasping breath came from up ahead. Vines crisscrossed the path in front of him, making it uneven and difficult to cross. Kelsie plunged forward, the ax raised. Lucifer put out a hand to stop her, but she marched on.

  “Look!” she pointed.

  He saw what she saw then.

  Almost hidden in the shadows was a plant belly. The giant flower was low to the earth, closed around a large figure that might have been an adult human. Those flowers trapped people and filled with venomous wine that managed to make their victims complacent before eating away their flesh.

  This plant belly wasn’t glowing as the ones Lucifer had previously encountered in the forest had been. Nor was it located on a towering stalk of a plant trunk. This one was low to the ground, easy for him to stumble over the bones and vines to reach. He wouldn’t have known anyone was alive within save for the pain hovering in a cloud above the area.

  Lucifer reached out with his mind. A heartbeat fluttered like hummingbird wings. Her breath came in shallow puffs. Fear rattled through her. Pain throbbed in his shoulders and thighs when he probed too deeply into the area. She was still alive.

  Kelsie dropped the ax and sliced through the thick skin of the petals with a knife.

  “Careful,” Lucifer said, not wanting her enthusiasm to make her sloppy.

  “Abby?” Kelsie’s voice came out strangled. “Baby, it’s all right. I’m here.”

  Lucifer stepped on a mound of sticks, one of them snapping. A groan came from the twigs. Lucifer looked down, confused where the voice came from until he saw the glowing embers of MacCoinneach’s eyes staring up from the ground. Lucifer leapt back.

  A gasp came from the plant belly.

  “Who are you?” Kelsie asked.

  Lucifer looked away from the sight of MacCoinneach to the excavated human. It wasn’t one human but two.

  The young woman stretched out her hands blindly to pat Kelsie’s arm. Tears spilled from her eyes. She tried to speak, but she was shaking too hard. The woman was scarred, patches of hair hanging from her mostly bald head. It took Lucifer a moment to recognize her. Without a glamour, makeup, or a wig, Hattie looked like a different person than the maiden he’d met at the ball.

  In her arms she held a sleeping baby. Galen squirmed. Lucifer stared in shock, unable to believe his eyes.

  There was so much pain in this corner of the cavern, Lucifer had to fortify his shield to block it. The pain wasn’t coming from Hattie or Galen. That was a small relief, but not much. He didn’t know if it was coming from MacCoinneach or Abigail.

  Lucifer looked from Hattie to MacCoinneach on the ground, caught in a tangle of vines.

  “What happened here? Where’s Abby?” Lucifer asked.

  “I protected her.” MacCoinneach’s words came out in a wheezing hiss. “I did just as Abigail asked.”

  “What do you mean you ‘did as Abby asked?’ What did she ask you to do?” Lucifer studied the vines binding MacCoinneach to the spot. His arms were missing, as well as his legs.

  A flash of memory came to Lucifer of Coinneach after he’d been crushed in the river. The same horror and desperation Lucifer had felt back then pressed in on him. He pushed it down.

  “Lucy?” Hattie managed to say between sobs.

  He carefully stepped around MacCoinneach. “I’m here.” He placed an arm around her.

  She patted his face and chest for reassurance. She was dry. There wasn’t any toxic plant fluid on her or her dress. Though she was dirty, she wasn’t stained with blood. As he projected his awareness, he sensed the throbbing in her ankle. He suspected it was sprained. Scratches covered her skin, but they were superficial. The snakelike cord that Lucifer had previously seen attach itself to people’s bellies wasn’t present.

  Lucifer patted her head. “We’re here. You’re going to be all right.”

  Hattie clutched at him, burying her face against his chest. She was mostly unscathed. That meant the pain came from MacCoinneach.

  Kelsie growled, picking up the ax again. “Where’s Abby?” She held it at MacCoinneach’s throat.

  He drew in a rattling breath. “She said to hide Hattie so she could lead them away. But they attacked, and I couldn’t put myself together to regrow.”

  “Lead who away?” Lucifer asked. “Who attacked you?”

  MacCoinneach struggled to breathe.

  “Answer him!” Kelsie pressed the blade into MacCoinneach’s bark flesh.

  “Stop, Kelsie. That isn’t helping,” Lucifer said.

  Between the fear and pain in MacCoinneach, Lucifer didn’t think he could take much more shock. Nor did he trust Kelsie not to act rashly. He tugged her back.

  Tears trickled from MacCoinneach’s eyes. “The other leshi. I didn’t know there were more out there. I didn’t know they were following us. I wouldn’t have taken them to see the muileateaches if I had known. I’m sorry.”

  The muileateaches. So that had been their plan. Shame and guilt weakened Lucifer’s focus, and more pain leaked under his shield. He forced himself to ward himself again. MacCoinneach was broken and injured, green sap leaking from his crushed body. He hadn’t done anything wrong—aside from being foolish perhaps. Lucifer didn’t want him to suffer as his father had.

  Lucifer tried to pull himself from Hattie’s arms, but she clung to him. She was frightened, and she needed reassurance. But he needed to help MacCoinneach and find Abigail.

  “Kelsie, help me with Hattie,” Lucifer said.

  She shook, rage building in her. Lucifer didn’t like using his incubus magic on Kelsie, not when she’d made it so clear she didn’t want him touching her or taking away her will. But at that moment, she looked like she was about to murder MacCoinneach, and as far as Lucifer could tell, MacCoinneach was innocent.

  Lucifer infused his voice with a hint of incubus charm. “Stop what you’re doing. Come over here. Help me with Hattie. Now.”

  Kelsie resisted.

  Lucifer knew he was crossing that boundary between them, but he needed to act before it was too late. He projected himself into her soul and found the wound in her heart. Hatred was a coal that burned like ice in her soul, tainting her perception of the world and sealing her heart in ice. Veins of frigid vengeance projected away from her soul, carrying cold currents of loathing into her limbs.

  Lucifer placed his astral hands around the searing flames of cold and warmed her heart. She was a wind affinity, so he used his breath to mellow the layer of freezing fire. Hatred melted. Her heart thawed. In a matter of a few seconds, her wound was gone.

  He wished she’d allowed him to heal her voluntarily. Kelsie gulped in air and fell onto her backside, dropping the ax.

  “Come here and help Hattie. Now,” Lucifer said.

  Kelsie nodded. She pried Hattie’s fingers away from him and allowed the girl to clutch at her instead.

  Lucifer kneeled beside MacCoinneach. He found a severed arm and held it next to the leshi, uncertain whether he could put him together. Or whether he had the time. He still needed to find Abigail.

  MacCoinneach swallowed. “I’m dying, aren’t I?”

  “I don’t know enough about leshi to be able to tell you that.” But Lucifer had seen what Coinneach had looked like before he’d died with his body crushed and splintered. It wasn’t so different from this.

  “Can you tell us anything that will help us find Abby?” Lucifer asked.

  MacCoinneach struggled to breathe. Lucifer projected his awareness into the cavern, trying to find a trace of her essence. There was so much Fae magic he couldn’t sense her. The Fae presence stretched in multiple directions, like the limbs of a spider.

  “She led them away,” Hattie said in a trembling voice. “We were supposed to escape once they passed. We were to go back outside and run away.”

  Obviously that plan hadn’t worked.

  “She went down the tunnel that had caved in. The one—” MacCoinneach coughed, green fluid bubbling out of his mouth.

  “He’s just a child,” Kelsie whispered. “He’s going to die.”

  “No!” Hattie wailed.

  MacCoinneach had always been small, but he was even more diminutive without the spindly length of his arms and legs. Perhaps Kelsie hadn’t seen him as a child before, only as a monster.

  “Where is Abigail now?” Lucifer asked. “Did you see?”

  “She’s gone to—” MacCoinneach choked.

  Lucifer could feel MacCoinneach’s soul leaving his body. He projected his awareness out of himself, grasping onto the green glitter of the leshi’s soul, and held it in place.

  “Stay with me, MacCoinneach. Where did Abigail go? What was her plan?”

  MacCoinneach gasped in a breath but didn’t answer. If only Lucifer had glue to keep the leshi’s soul fixed to his body. He could see why the blanket would have been useful.

  Kelsie was speaking, but Lucifer didn’t hear her. He was too deeply immersed in MacCoinneach’s pain, in keeping his soul anchored so that it didn’t drift away.

  He needed a solution, but his knowledge and supplies were limited.

  Lucifer touched the amulet at his throat, wondering if it could help. The bottle was filled with a sad soul that Abigail claimed she didn’t want. If he understood the theory correctly, sacrificing the life of an Amni Plandai could heal another plant person. Notwithstanding that, MacCoinneach was Fae and Abigail was Witchkin. Their magic wasn’t a true match. And the book had said such an exchange was for gaining magic, not to call someone’s soul.

  If Lucifer tried to use Abigail’s soul to glue MacCoinneach inside his body, he didn’t know if it would work. For all he knew, putting a fragment of soul inside MacCoinneach might make everything worse. He might drive MacCoinneach’s soul out entirely.

  Lucifer drew out a small piece of Abby’s soul from the vial and placed it inside MacCoinneach, using it like a suture to keep him anchored. The leshi shuddered. Lucifer spun that fragment of soul into yarn as he had done with the leshi tears for the blanket. He used the essence of the spirit to bind the soul to the body.

  MacCoinneach gasped again. Lucifer was aware of the life inside him gaining strength. The stumps of his arms and legs throbbed as life filled him anew. Lucifer worked to numb the pain and clot the sticky plant fluids that were the equivalent of blood. He wanted to do more, to heal MacCoinneach, but that would take time. He needed to find Abigail.

  “Where did she go?” There were so many exits. There was so little time.

  MacCoinneach lifted his head. “The second tunnel from the left.”

  Lucifer picked up his copper pipe. “Kelsie, get them out of here. Use portal magic. If MacCoinneach starts to fade, place Abby’s blanket on him. It’s in the trunk at home. It will keep his soul from leaving. Grab his limbs if you have time. I can repair him later.”

  Assuming there was a later.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Tunnel Vision

  Lucifer followed the tunnel until it came to an end in a pile of rubble. His heart rattled in his chest. He told himself not to panic. MacCoinneach had said the tunnel was caved in. It didn’t mean Abigail was underneath. There were gaps in the rubble at the top, but Lucifer didn’t think he could get through. Only a spindly creature made of sticks might fit. Lucifer stretched out his awareness into the space beyond. After the rocks, there was an empty cavern. The leshi magic was less prominent there. For the first time since entering the cave, Lucifer sensed Abigail’s presence. It wasn’t just a trace of her essence, but her soul.

  Lucifer drew the shape of the portal he wished to exit, fortified it with his magic, and strode through. It was dark on the other side, and he stumbled on a rock. Lucifer lit electricity in his palm, slowly amping up the light until he could see. Whatever Abigail had known about this cavern she’d used to her advantage to defeat her opponents. Fragile stalactites had broken from the ceiling and fallen to impale leshi. There were five of them, pinned and unmoving. From the cloud of pain lingering above the pile of rubble, he suspected more had been buried underneath.

  Ragged breathing came from somewhere nearby.

  “Abby?” he called softly, uncertain how sensitive the geology was to vibrations.

  There was no answer.

  He projected his awareness out of himself, prodding the darkness until he found her. He stepped that way, tripping over crushed leshi.

  The tree stood in the middle of the cave, roots sprawled across the expanse of a puddle.

  He knew it was Abigail, even without her auburn hair or flowers. The Fae magic in the air couldn’t mask the taste of spring and oak. She was only half-formed, her feet and hands elongated, ending in leafy clusters. Her body was stretched, twigs piercing through clothes. Her face was almost human but made of bark.

  A shudder of dread passed through him, this moment very much like when he’d gazed at her outside the Raven Queen’s castle. She’d been stuck as a tree, and he’d been helpless to change her to her human form. He stomped down the wave of panic rising in him.

  She was a tree. There were far worse things she could have done with herself. If she was a tree, she could turn back into being a human. He’d helped her heal this way before.

  Though he hadn’t been able to turn her into a human after she’d been a tree for over a year. Vega had been the one to do that, and it had taken a special spell, the one she’d used from the Ruby of Divine Wisdom. Unfortunately she didn’t have that ruby any longer.

  Abigail remained posed, her arms still touching the ceiling where she’d knocked jagged pillars of rock onto her attackers. Two of the leshi had almost gotten her.

  One was still wrapped around her legs, his vines clinging to her. She had smashed it with a rock. The leshi was still alive, but just barely. It sucked nourishment from her. Lucifer snapped the creature’s shoots from her body so that it couldn’t feast on her energy. He didn’t have the ax and had to tear through the twigs and vines with his hands. Once it was loose enough, he kicked it off her.

  He shoved the other one away as well and dragged them both off. They were too crushed to survive long without sunlight, water, or the nourishment of some kind of flesh. They would probably die soon, but Lucifer didn’t want to take any chances. He couldn’t risk them waking and attacking as he tried to heal Abigail.

  It was the sudden absence of a wheezing breath that alerted Lucifer that something was wrong. He rushed back to Abigail’s side and placed a hand on her trunk where he thought her lungs were. He projected himself inside her, willing her to breathe, but there were no lungs. There was no heart. At least not a human heart. She was a tree, shifting into a less human state slowly.

  Rocks crunched behind him, and Lucifer whirled. A leshi hauled herself to her feet. Only she didn’t look like a leshi. She used a glamour to project a human façade. She made herself look like Abigail.

  She opened her arms to Lucifer, desperation in her eyes. “Help me,” she said.

  That voice was as sweet as honey and full of lies.

  It wasn’t a strong glamour, the leshi being as weak as she was. Lucifer could have killed her with electrical magic, but he was too close to Abigail. He didn’t want to hurt her again. Already so much of the past was repeating itself.

  Slowly, Lucifer stepped away from the tree. He kept himself between Abigail and the leshi.

  “Is anyone else alive?” Lucifer asked.

  The glamoured leshi didn’t answer. She stretched her arms out to him, tears on her face. He lifted the copper rod, prodding her away. It made his heart seize in his chest to see this vision of Abigail, her anguished expression so much like the real Abigail’s.

  Lucifer swallowed his apprehension. He unleashed the electricity bound under his skin and projected it into the rod. The leshi jerked back and screeched. The mirage of Abigail disappeared. All that was left was a smoking monster made of wood, writhing and twisting away from him. The creature dove to the side and lunged. Lucifer smashed the rod into her abdomen, projecting a lethal dose of electricity.

 

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