On the other side of the armed lupi, Nettie waited beside a modified SUV that would serve as an ambulance if necessary. With luck, none of them would need Nettie’s services, but Lily wasn’t about to rely on luck.
Only Lily, Cullen, and Cynna were crossing. The gate would be too small, the power too little, to allow more to pass through. And, of course, they had to take a small enough party that there would be room for one more on their return.
Max could have come. He was small enough to ride through the gate piggyback, but when they finally tracked him down he’d cursed a lot, told them they were idiots, and kicked them out of the club. Max didn’t deal well with grief, Cullen said. Lily wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a joke.
Lily stared at the circle, willing them to hurry. So far, all they’d done was hold hands. All that she could see, anyway.
“ ‘It is easy to go down into hell,’” Cynna murmured. “ ‘Night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide… ’ Guess old Virgil had that wrong, didn’t he?”
“What?” Lily’s turned to stare at the taller woman. “Virgil? Uh—is that poetry?”
Cynna shrugged the shoulder that didn’t hold the strap of an Ml 6. “I like old poetry.”
For an ex-Dizzy, Cynna knew the oddest things.
“Mir acculum,” Hannah said suddenly. “A dondredis mir requiem.”
“A dondredis mir requiem,” the tall black woman repeated. The other woman and Cullen echoed the phrase in turn, then they joined voices in a quiet chant.
At last something was happening. This first part of the ritual required all four of them—grooming the energy, Cullen called it. The second stage would be up to him, however. That’s when Lily…
“Is that a taxi cab?” Cynna asked incredulously.
It was. The cab bumped up the dirt road that led here from the highway, stopping in a flurry of dust where the ruts stopped on the other side of the armed Nokolai. Unable to see clearly past the men, Lily headed that way. Cynna fell into step beside her.
Cullen and the women continued chanting, oblivious. Just as Lily reached the guards, the back door of the taxi swung open. Four feet of bad-tempered ugly climbed out.
Cynna stopped. “What is that?”
“That,” Lily said, feeling her mouth stretch in a wholly unexpected grin, “is what you’ll be carrying through instead of your backpack.”
Max possessed ugliness the way a few rare souls possess beauty, an ugliness that fascinated. His nose stretched toward his mouth like a cartoon witch’s, as if it had melted, then reformed in mid-drip. He had no hair, not much in the way of chin or lips, and skin the color of mushrooms. He was skinny, with knobby joints and arms too long for his body.
Today he wore camouflage and army boots. God only knew where he’d gotten the outfit.
One of the lupi moved to intercept him. Lily gestured at him to let Max through.
Max was muttering under his breath as he stomped up to Lily. “I can’t believe I’m here. I can’t believe I’m this stupid. Well?” he demanded, corning to a stop. “What are you staring at?”
“A very welcome sight,” she said softly. “Max, this is Cynna.”
The tips of his ears turned red. He scowled and looked Cynna up and down. “Nice boobs. Too big, but they’re shaped good.”
Cynna shook her head and loosened the straps on her pack. “I hope you’re worth giving up half our supplies.”
“Lily,” Cullen said.
She looked over Max’s head at him.
He stood alone now, holding a silver athame—a ceremonial knife—in one hand. The three women sat in the grass a few feet away, still chanting softly. The candles were burning.
She took a deep breath and touched the canvas cases hung from her belt that carried extra clips. Show time.
Lily’s part in the ritual was passive. From this point on she wasn’t to speak, not until she crossed. He would tie the gate to her, as he’d suggested—he’d won that argument— but she need only stand there and let him do it.
That, and bleed a bit.
Lily walked over to him and felt nothing—not a trace, not a whisper of magic, though it must be thick in the air. She closed her mind to that loss and held out her left hand.
He murmured something, the words soft and foreign. Then he took her hand in his, palm up, and ran the blade of his athame across the heel of her palm. It burned. Blood welled up quickly, and Cullen murmured more words. Then he turned her hand palm down and shook it, sprinkling the earth with her blood as he called out one word three times.
Vertigo seized her, a twisting, scraping otherness that slid inside, settling in her gut and turning her senses crazy. The world spun, and she staggered. Cullen’s arm came around her waist, steadying her.
Gradually the world steadied, but the sense of otherness remained. She felt as if some bizarre geometry had been planted in her middle and was busily making itself at home.
She straightened and gave Cullen a nod.
He stepped back. Using the tip of his bloody knife, he began tracing the doorway that would surround the altar. Light followed the athame like the afterglow from a sparkler as he slit the fabric between the realms, and when he finished the air shimmered. It was like looking through heat waves.
Lily put a hand on her stomach. The shimmer somehow matched the shifting geometry in her gut. It wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t pleasant, either. She looked over her shoulder.
At her glance, Cynna bent her knees and Max climbed aboard. She’d have to duck to get through, but they’d fit. Cullen tucked his athame in his belt and slipped on the harness that held the rocket launcher, a huge tube almost as tall as he was. He picked up his machine gun and took his place at the rear.
They’d go through single-file. Lily gave them all a nod, unslung her M-16, and walked toward the shimmering air. Four paces, duck as she stepped over the alter—and into hell.
Where a battle already raged.
A small fire smoldered in the center of the rocky chamber Rule had led them to. It was a Swiss-cheese sort of a space, the walls holed in several places, with fissures in the ceiling. Some of the smoke from the fire escaped through those overhead cracks, but the fire still made the room smoky without providing much light.
Better than no light at all, though. Lily hugged her knees. Thank goodness Gan had been able to bring a load of firewood. She was small enough that she hadn’t had to crawl the way Lily had in the worst of the passages. Things could be worse.
Who was she kidding? She hated this. Hated it. But not as much as Rule did.
How had he done it? How had he made himself keep coming back to these tunnels, over and over, hunting a way out? She’d known it took a toll on him, but she hadn’t understood, not really. Not until she followed him into a darkness so heavy it had seemed to press the air from her lungs.
She had no idea how long it had taken them to reach this chamber, where the air was good and the ceiling was higher than her outstretched hands. Probably not the hours it had seemed. They’d trended more up than down, though. Were they anywhere near the top of the cliff where the dragons gathered to sing?
Gan spoke suddenly, her voice high and scratchy. “Xitil’s called Earth-Mover, you know.”
“Does that mean what it sounds like?”
Gan nodded miserably. “She could bring it all down on us. It’d be easy for her.”