Chapter  6

   The sweet smell of opium touched her nostrils as she entered the stairwell, her skirt sweeping along her ankles as she managed the winding decline into the bowels of the building.

  From the outside, no one would be the wiser, the grey building windowless and industrial, just like so many others on the Duwamish Waterway. No one would ever suspect what lay beneath the cold cement floor in the impossibly built basement.

  A familiar hum met her ears as she ventured lower, the temperature falling, humidity intermingling with the wafts of smoke until she landed at a door of cast iron.

  She did not need to wait, the gate swinging inward to allow her entry and slowly, she flitted through, eyes adjusting to the dimly lit hallway effortlessly.

  The din increased, a sea of murmuring but none of it distinct, a light headedness overcoming her body as she crept deeper into the cavern. Abruptly she stopped and peered into a doorway, still and waiting.

  “Come in.”

  She pushed her way across the threshold, the air thickening around her as she entered the dungeon, alight with hundreds of candles.

  This feels like home, she thought, pausing to close her eyes and revel in the moment, knowing it was fleeting.

  “Sit.”

  She obliged, reluctantly parting her lids to look at the being before her, his shoulder-length blonde hair shimmering against the flickering wax light.

   Spreading her skirts around her in a fan, she peered at him, her rear resting against the thickness of the pillows.

  “It’s how you remember our past, isn’t it?” he asked and she chuckled softly, nodding.

  “I miss it,” she confessed. “Before all the technology and electricity pulsating through the earth, disrupting all our natural frequencies and destroying our mojo.”

  “You are not the only one who feels like that,” he assured her. “That is why we choose to stay below; where it is dark and untouched.”

  “I wish I could too,” she sighed.

  “Perhaps one day we all will again.”

  She did not bother to ask him how that could ever come to be. She suspected she knew very well what he had in mind.

  Instead, she only smiled and waited for him to ask the inevitable question. 

  “Well?”

  “I have recovered the last of the Lanuarius Collection,” she replied, pulling the brooch from her cleavage and handing it to him.

  He reached toward her, his long fingernails pinching the garnet and bronze brooch and drawing it back toward him to study it closely.

  A small smile crossed over his fair features and he nodded slowly.

  “Your girl is good,” he said. “She has gotten everything I’ve asked for…almost.”

  Rowan’s lips curved into a slight smirk.

  “She does what I ask of her,” she corrected, slightly annoyed that he was not giving credit where it was due. To her mind, it was she who was good, not Arya. After all, where would Arya be without her, but living in some dilapidated apartment on the Strip.

  “Where is the rest of what I demanded?” he asked, bringing her back to the present and she cringed inwardly.

  “You must exercise patience,” Rowan sighed. “I – “

  She was unable to finish the sentence as she flew to the ground, her throat ensnared within his outstretched hand.

  Her blue eyes bulged from their sockets as she stared beseechingly at him.

  “Are you suggesting that I lack patience?” he hissed and she felt the bones of her windpipe bend as she fought violently to shake her head, her blue eyes wide with contrition.

  How could she have forgotten his wrath so easily?

  “I have been nothing but patient. I feel like the only thing I do is sit around twiddling my thumbs waiting on word from you.”

  She was losing consciousness, black dots dancing before her eyes, and then he suddenly released her.

  He was sitting back on his pillow as if he had never moved and Rowan gasped, choking as she struggled to breathe.

  “How much longer will it be, Rowan?” he asked, his tone conversational. “This is becoming ridiculous. Do I need to find another priestess for the job? You are not the only one who – “

  “No!” she cried, rubbing her throat to increase the circulation. “Please!”

  He eyed her with icy eyes, their prisms hypnotic as they studied her face.

   “How can you be sure she will get it?” he asked. “It is quite a risk to take, no matter what the price. Does she have a desire to die?”

  Rowan shook her head.

  “She is vindictive.”

  His eyebrows shot up.

  “She has a personal connection to Dantalion?”

  Rowan stilled her thoughts, certain that the powerful beast was trying to read her mind.

  She offered him a knowing smile.

  “A personal dislike,” she replied evasively.

  There was no reason for the demon to know about the child. It was the only leverage she had, the only way to gain the upper hand against the demons if she should ever need it.

  I may have lied to Arya about the spell being in the book, but I did not lie about my desire to own the earthly underworld. There is a way to defeat the demons in that book and I will find it.

  “Ensure it is enough, Rowan. When will she get the Chasm?”

  “In two weeks there is a gala at Dante’s estate. She will be among the guests.”

  He smiled as he nodded.

  “Very well. I have waited this long. A fortnight will not kill me.”

  Rowan rose and swallowed, smiling demurely at him.

  “Until next time, my lord.”

  She spun to leave, the sense of comfort she had felt upon entry completely diminished with the threat on her life. One day, they would have the world back the way it had been, a realm where the immortals reigned without the mortals tainting everything they touched.

  First, she would use Uvall to help her achieve that reality, and then she would end all the demons once and for all.