Chapter Twenty

I t was like an instantaneous trip to the coldest zone in the universe, an icy chill filling Derek’s body as he zoomed through nothing but wintry darkness. Dizziness rolled his stomach as he fell, but mercifully the fall was short and he landed feet first into a pile of…something sticky.

Pitch-black. He didn’t want to turn on his lights because he didn’t know if he was alone, so he grabbed his shades from around his neck and slipped them on, illuminating the room he found himself in.

Interesting. God, it smelled awful down here—like the hybrid demons’ stink on the surface times a million. He wrinkled his nose at the stench and surveyed the tiny room. It looked like they’d excavated and plastered some sticky wet shit on the walls and floor to keep the dirt from caving in. His boots stuck in the slime. He lifted them, and the muck was a mixture of dirt and something clear and stringy.

He probably didn’t even want to know what it was, but it reminded him of something he’d seen in ghost movies. Ectoplasm or something like that.

The room narrowed and led to a tunnel on the right, but it was dark, and he couldn’t make out anything beyond. There was nothing in the room. And the room was small; no more than two or three people, or creatures, could fit in it.

When he heard movement, he grabbed his laser, his gut tightening in anticipation. He stilled, waiting, but no one appeared. Instinct told him he’d been allowed down here, that they’d brought him. If these creatures had wanted him dead, he’d be dead already. Maybe they wanted to change him into one of them and that’s why he was still alive. It didn’t really matter what their agenda was. He had one of his own. Find Gina and get both of them out of there. In the meantime, this was an opportunity to gather whatever information he could.

He started moving, lifting his boots and shaking off the muck as he left the narrow room and headed down the tunnel. It was wide enough for the hybrid demons to move single file through it, but that was about it. Reminded him of studying ant colonies in those narrow glass cases when he was a kid. The tunnels snaked this way and that, and he had no freakin’ idea which way to go next. But he did make a mental note of which way he’d come in, because as far as he was concerned, that was the way out.

The further he moved through their tunnels, the more he realized no one was around. No demons rushed at him, no hulking hybrids blocked his way. It was as if they had been ordered to let him pass.

As if he were purposely being allowed to move freely.

But why?

He hated when someone fucked with him this way.

And that weird energy he’d been feeling for weeks now was growing stronger. Uncomfortably stronger. He liked that even less, because it was powerful. An ugly power, unsettling, like voices in his head. Was he going crazy?

Maybe.

But before he did, he was going to find Gina and get her the hell out of here. No way were these assholes going to use her as a baby-making machine.

Not the woman he loved.

I’m gonna get you out of here, Gina. Hang tough.

He moved down the tunnels, knowing they were aware he was here.

Oh, but they didn’t know what he was capable of.

They were about to find out.

 

Gina woke with a start, confusion fogging her brain. Her entire body was ice cold and she was shivering. She wanted to turn around to curl up for warmth, but she couldn’t. When she tried to sit up, something held her back.

Her eyes shot open, but it was dark and she couldn’t see. She blinked to focus, allowing her eyes to adjust to the lack of light. She wiggled her fingers, trying to feel what had her bound at her middle, but she couldn’t reach.

Dammit! Where the hell was she?

She remembered the battle with the demons, and being surrounded by cold hands, frozen bodies, a sudden drop like falling in an elevator without brakes. Then everything went black.

Which meant she had to be in the tunnels. With the demons.

Ceasing her struggles, she let her head rest on the flat surface. Fear snaked along her spine, her breathing shallow and quick. Nausea rolled in her stomach and she swallowed, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth, trying to slow down her breaths.

Okay, don’t panic. Forcing a calm she didn’t feel, she had to relax. Terror wasn’t going to get her anywhere and what she really wanted right now was out of here.

She struggled against the bindings but they wouldn’t budge. And she was cold. So damn cold her teeth were chattering.

If only she could see. She hated not being able to see.

Then she heard a sound and she stilled, stopped breathing for a second, paralyzed with fear.

Something was in the room with her. She heard a squishing sound, like someone stepping in and out of mud.

Squick, squick, squick.

And breaths. Rhythmic, in and out, drawing closer.

So much for don’t panic. She started to shake. The pitching in her stomach increased and she was certain she was going to throw up.

“Don’t be afraid, my dear,” came a voice behind her head. “No one is going to harm you.”

Soft, deep voice. She shuddered. Just like the one from that demon the first night. Not harm her? Oh, sure. That’s what the demon had said that night, too.

“Gina, isn’t it?”

He knew her name. How did he know her name?

When he reached out and caressed her hair, she recoiled, scooting as far away as she could. Damn these bindings!

“I’m sorry it’s so cold in here, but we find it quite comfortable. You will, too, in time.”

She was going to die. Tears slid from the corners of her eyes and fell down her cheeks. She sniffed them back, refusing to show fear.

“Don’t cry, Gina. He’s coming for you.”

Who was coming? A demon?

Oh, no. It was worse. He was coming. Which meant one of them. She was going to be forced to…not that. Please, God, not that. Not like her mother. She began to cry in earnest now, hating her own weakness but unable to stomach the thought of being turned into one of those creature-making machines. Her mind filled with visions of what she’d have to endure. No matter how hard she tried to clear her head, she couldn’t block them out.

She’d rather be dead. Somehow, she’d figure out a way to kill herself. She could not, would not go through the same thing her mother had.

“Don’t cry, Gina,” the voice said, smoothing his hand over her hair. His fingertips brushed her cheek and the frigid cold shot right through her. “You will grow to love it here. All the women do.”

She grimaced in disgust, wishing she could see him, could leap off this table. If she could, she’d wrap her hands around his frosty throat and squeeze the life right out of the bastard.

But she couldn’t. And it was dark and she hated this blindness.

Then he laughed. A dark chuckle that shriveled her soul.

It was, purely and simply, evil. The sound left her ears ringing, her heart pounding, and her body shaking.

She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for death.

 

The tunnels seemed endless, but Derek finally found, literally, a light at the end of one of them. He followed it, tired of running into one dead end after another.

And still he hadn’t found any demons.

What the hell was up with that? He was packing enough ammo to fight off hundreds of them if he had to, which slowed him down considerably, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Once he found Gina, he wanted to make sure he had enough firepower to get them both out of there.

Plus he’d brought the explosives.

These bastards were going down. Especially if they hurt her.

As he drew closer to the light, he realized it wasn’t anything man-made. By the time he got right on top of it, he looked up and found the source. It was a break in the ground above. Sunlight, from the surface. That was a good thing. A very good thing. It meant a possible way out.

The tunnels finally widened, then ended in a huge open space. With about six more openings for him to choose from.

“Shit,” he whispered, frustration eating away at him.

He closed his eyes and inhaled, letting the power he was fighting against flow through him.

Third tunnel from the left. Definitely. He felt her.

Goddamn, that was some scary shit.

But he knew it was correct. He headed through to the tunnel and was instantly hit with the thick stench of demon. Oh, yeah, much more powerful now. He readied his laser, finger poised on the trigger, muscles tensed in anticipation.

Gina’s presence grew stronger.

She was alive. Relief washed over him.

He didn’t understand how they were connected, or what this strange power was that seemed to be growing stronger down here, but he wasn’t going to look the psychic gift horse in the mouth. He followed the invisible thread that led him through a hallway and into a room. As soon as he rounded the corner, he caught sight of her.

She lay on a rectangular slab, bound.

Her eyes were closed and she wasn’t moving. His heart slammed against his chest. Was she even still alive?

She was. He’d know if she wasn’t.

At least she was alone, but he smelled ambush. There was a reason he’d gotten through the portal this time, and he didn’t think it had anything to do with the explosives suddenly deciding to work. He’d been allowed down here for a reason.

Keeping his weapon at the ready, he hustled over to her, circling the dirt table where she lay and reaching into his belt for his switchblade.

Her eyes shot open, her gaze flitting nervously left to right.

He exhaled a sigh of relief. She was alive!

And scared to death. Of course. She was blind in here since it was pitch-black.

He leaned down to her ear. “Gina, it’s me.”

She sucked in a breath and turned her head in his direction. “Derek?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, God,” she whispered, tears falling. Her lower lip trembled. She looked miserable and scared. Really damn scared.

“Did they hurt you?”

“No. But I’d really like to get the hell out of here. Now. Right now.”

“Hold still, baby. Let me cut these ties.” He sliced through the bindings across her body and legs, then lifted her up. She latched onto him, burying her face in his neck. After sheathing his knife, he wrapped his free hand around her waist and hoisted her off the table, grateful to have found her alive.

God, she felt good. But she was still shaking.

“You’re freezing.”

“I don’t care. You’re warm.”

“Let’s get out of here. It’s hot enough topside.”

“Oh, what a sweet, tender reunion.”

Derek froze, releasing his hold on Gina. The intruder stood in shadow at the entrance to the room. “Get behind me and hang onto me,” he ordered her.

She did, her hands never leaving his waist. “I recognize his voice. He spoke to me earlier.”

Derek could only make out a tall, broad, shadowy figure, partially obscured by a pole at the room’s entrance. He lifted his weapon to take a shot, but the figure moved behind the pillar.

“Too dark in here, Derek, don’t you think?” the figure asked.

Hey! How’d they know his name?

Instantly, Derek was blinded as the room lit up. He jerked the shades off and blinked to adjust his vision.

“Let there be light,” the man said with a smile and a shrug, entering the room.

Derek raised his weapon to fire, but something stopped him from pulling the trigger.

“Oh, you don’t want to do that.”

He didn’t, but he didn’t know why. Oh, screw that. He needed to get Gina out of here. He raised his weapon and aimed.

“You look good, Derek.”

His finger stalled. Again, the man had said his name.

“Derek,” Gina whispered. “Fire!”

Ignoring her, he tilted his head to the side. Who the hell was this guy? Dressed in light camouflage pants and a tight brown T-shirt stretched over well-developed shoulders and chest, he was several years older than Derek. He appeared normally human in all aspects, right down to his dark, lively eyes and black hair peppered with gray at the temples. He seemed robust, fit, healthy, and more importantly, completely human.

But looks could be deceiving and Derek didn’t trust anything having to do with demons.

“Okay, so you know my name. Who are you?”

Gina tugged at Derek’s gun, but he pulled it away from her grasp. He wasn’t ready to kill this guy yet. He should be, but something was stopping him.

God, he was confused.

The man smiled, showing off even, white teeth, not at all like those snarling fangs the demons sported. “Look again, Derek.”

What kind of game was this asshole playing? “I am looking. Still don’t know who you are.”

“If you let your guard down I think you could figure it out.”

Derek studied the man and frowned. There was something familiar about him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Maybe he and Lou had run into him before, but it wasn’t likely. The Realm of Light was a close-knit organization. Derek had met them all, and he’d have remembered this guy.

“You want to tell me what’s going on here?” Starting with who you are? It was driving him crazy. The familiarity, the niggling sense of awareness and foreboding. Gina moved to his side and he glanced down at her pale, tear-streaked face. She slipped her hand in his.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” The man paced slowly in front of Derek, studying him by tilting his head from side to side. “We never did look alike. You always favored your mother’s side of the family.”

Derek let his eyes drift closed for a fraction of a second, wanting this all to be a bad dream. Denial was a good thing, right? This man couldn’t be who he was beginning to suspect he was. He was supposed to be dead, or in jail. Anywhere but here. Why here, and for what reason?

“You’re not him.”

One corner of the man’s mouth lifted, as if he were just letting Derek in on a private joke. “Yes, I am.”

“You left. Or died.” He refused to believe it. It was some kind of trick, or illusion. Hell, it had been so long Derek didn’t even remember his face anymore. And twenty-five years had changed him.

“Is that what your mother told you? That I died?” He stepped so close Derek felt the man’s breath across his cheek. “She was always afraid of me. That’s why she took you and ran, hid you away so I couldn’t find you. Because she was scared of me. But you never were. Then or now. You don’t fear me at all, do you?”

“No.”

“Good. A boy should never be afraid of his father, Derek.”

Derek’s heart crashed to his feet. Despite inner denial, he couldn’t refute the truth.

He heard Gina’s gasp, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from his father, Ben.

“What are you doing down here, with…them?”

“They are my brothers. I belong here.”

So what he suspected all along had really happened. All those years ago, when the demons had taken his brother, Dominic, they had also taken his father. He had asked his mother about it but she refused to talk about Ben.

Maybe the Sons of Darkness had taken his father be fore they’d taken Nic? Maybe he’d even been part of Nic’s capture. Derek wished he could remember. He’d only seen the demons take Nic.

He had such vague memories of his dad, of the times before Nic disappeared.

Did his mother know? Was that why she’d been so obsessed with running after Nic had been taken?

“How are you associated with these things?”

“We have a lot to talk about, Derek. Will you put your weapon down and listen?”

A dozen demons appeared, filling the outer room, standing behind Ben. He could take some of them down, but not all of them. And he had Gina to consider. “Do I have a choice?”

“Not really,” his father said, amusement in his voice.

Derek tried not to shudder. “Then I guess I’ll just listen to what you have to say.” For starters. Then he’d think about what he had to do, what his options were.

“Derek!” Gina urged in a fervent whisper.

“It’s okay,” he said, not even looking at her. He had it under control.

He’d listen, but no matter who the man claimed to be, these things were going down. And if Derek had to take himself and his father with them, so be it.

All demons had to die, no matter who they were.

He just had to get Gina out of here first. As soon as he figured out a plan.

“I don’t suppose you’d care to hand over your weapons,” Ben suggested.

“No. I think I’ll hang on to them for now.”

Ben nodded and motioned through the doorway. “Then you and Gina can follow me.”

The demons parted and allowed them to pass. Derek didn’t like it, but he and Gina were surrounded and they had little choice.

As they followed Ben, it occurred to him there were no light fixtures, but low-level light allowed him to see where they were going. And as they moved from room to room, the dirt walls became real walls. He ran his fingers across them. Real, painted walls. This wasn’t at all like the other room. Solid floors and sterile, gray walls, like a laboratory, with computer gadgetry that belied his expectations about demons. He hadn’t expected tech stuff. Who the hell used these things?

“What is all this?”

“We’ll get to that later,” Ben said, motioning him into yet another room, an expansive, elegant living area with sofa and table and chairs. Gleaming silver swords lined the walls over one sofa. “Take a seat.”

Derek’s eyes widened at how…normal this all seemed. If he didn’t know better, he would think he was in somebody’s house.

“How’d you get all this stuff down here?” he asked, he and Gina taking a seat on one of the love seats across from the sofa, noting as he did so that all the slimy muck had disappeared off his boots.

He looked to Gina, who appeared shocked. She had yet to say a word, just stared at Ben and then back at him as if she couldn’t fathom it all, either.

“Think of it as wish fulfillment,” Ben said, slipping onto the sofa. “Want something to drink? Beer? How about a cigar?”

In an instant an ice-cold bottled beer appeared on the table in front of him, along with a humidor. Derek lifted the lid, somehow not surprised to find it filled with his favorite Cuban cigars. He inhaled the sweet aroma, then shook his head, certain neither of those items had been there before. “How’d you do that?”

“Like I said,” Ben said with a sly grin. “Wish fulfillment. Anything you can think of, just wish for it and it can be yours.”

Uh-huh. He’d seen too many people sell their souls to the devil to fall for that shit. “No, thanks.”

“How about you, Gina. Can I offer you something?”

“Our freedom,” she shot back.

He laughed. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Then you can go straight to hell.”

Ben laughed. “Interesting choice of words, my dear.”

“What are you doing down here?” Derek asked again.

Turning his attention back to Derek, Ben said, “It’s my home. At least for now. And soon it’ll be yours.”

“I’m not going to become a demon.”

“We’ll see. It’s not as bad as you think.”

“Tell me how it happened, Da—Ben.” He couldn’t bring himself to call him Dad. It just wasn’t right. He didn’t know exactly what his father was, but he didn’t have that kind of familial feeling for this man. Ben was nothing more than a stranger now.

Ben quirked a brow. “How what happened?”

“How the demons got you. Was it before they took Nic?”

His smile grew wider. “You don’t understand yet, do you?”

“I guess I don’t. Why don’t you explain it to me?” He hated playing games.

“I’m enjoying letting you figure it all out yourself.”

Derek scanned the room, conscious of demons lurking in the dark recesses surrounding them. He counted four so far. “Well, while we’re playing twenty questions, why don’t you get rid of the Frankensteins. They give me the creeps.”

With one quick nod of his head, the demons vanished into the darkness. Ben leaned forward and clasped his hands together, staring at his fingers for a second before looking up at Derek. “Ask and I’ll tell you.”

“I want to know everything. And I want the truth.”

“The truth is, no demons captured me. Ever.”

Derek frowned and shook his head. “I don’t under stand.”

“Of course you don’t, because you were too young to notice and I didn’t want you to know until I was ready to fully assimilate you. I took your brother first, but your mother got smart and spirited you away before I could get to you. I should have taken you both at the same time, but I couldn’t.”

“So I was right.” Ben had been turned before Nic. He had taken his own son.

But wait. The thing that took his brother had looked a lot like one of the hybrids. Huge, imposing, with red glowing eyes and scary as hell. His father didn’t look any thing like one of those.

Shit. Now he was more confused than ever. Blood pounded in his temples. Derek scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to make sense of everything. Gina scooted closer and wrapped her arm around his shoulders.

“Just spill it, Ben,” Gina interjected. “Tell Derek the damn truth.”

“Because I wasn’t turned into a demon, Derek. I was born one. And when I took Dominic, I came to claim what was rightfully mine. You and Dominic are as much mine as you were your mother’s. Half of my blood runs in both of you.”

Derek stared at Ben, not wanting to make that connection. “That’s not true.”

Ben smiled, looking so human Derek couldn’t believe the words that spilled from his mouth. “Yes, it is, son. I’m a demon. Not just a demon, but a demon Lord. Your friend Louis has told you all about the Sons of Darkness.”

A black haze filled his mind, every word Lou had told him about the Sons of Darkness slamming into his consciousness.

“I am the Sons of Darkness, Derek. One of the twelve leaders. My blood is your blood. It’s time for you to face what you are.”

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