“Selene’s gone,” my brother said, directing our attention to where she had just been. “She vanished with the demon.”
I glanced over. The Demon Lord had indeed taken her, which was the real reason why he’d come. Likely a goddess warranted a Lord to pick her up. “She won’t stay dead in the Underworld, but her new normal will be ugly. I hope we never meet up with her again.”
“You’re not going there if I can help it,” Rourke growled, warm hands encircling me. “I know some about the Underworld, but we’ll have to learn more. I believe they have to serve you papers of some kind. The Demon Sect is carefully controlled by the Coalition. You can see what happens when they’re in this plane. It’s an explosion of power.” Rourke pulled me close. His touch electrified me. Is that always going to happen? I asked my wolf. She gave a happy bark. I licked my lips.
There were just a few more things we needed to do and we could leave this wretched cave forever. “Where’s Ray?” I asked Naomi. She had retrieved the cross, which meant she’d found Eamon. I didn’t really want to know the answer, but it was time.
Naomi walked over to the spot where Selene had just been. She bent over and picked up something by its edges, surprise on her features as she turned toward us. “The cross must not be able to travel to the Underworld or it would be gone.” She placed it into her pocket. Then she turned to face me. “I did not see your human. I encountered Eamon coming back in one of the tunnels.” Her voice was hard. “He did not survive our reunion.”
I wasn’t sad to hear that Eamon had found his end, but I was sad to know his sister had had to mete it out. There was no way that was any fun. I would never be able to kill Tyler. “Did he say anything about Ray?”
She shook her head. “He had no time to… speak.”
“Then there’s a chance he might be alive, right?” I know my face held hope, even though my heart didn’t believe it. “Do you think Eamon drank him dry?”
Naomi bowed her head. “There is very little chance the human survived their encounter. Eamon was not in his right mind. It would’ve been… a brutal feeding.”
“I have to find him before we leave,” I said. “Which way was the tunnel?” Sulfur still clung to the air, making it impossible for me to scent anything.
She pointed back behind the dais. “There is a small opening in the corner. Follow the tunnel for a few meters. You should be able to scent him there.”
I looked at the group. Danny lowered his gaze and Tyler set himself onto an old wooden chair that had somehow survived the carnage of the room. I took a step forward and Rourke made a move to follow me. “No,” I said, reaching back to place my hand on his warm chest. All I wanted to do was crawl into his arms. But that would have to wait. “I just need to say goodbye. He was a thorn in my side, but he was a decent guy in the end, however misguided.”
I crossed the room and entered the tunnel.
It was no more than a crack in the wall at the beginning, easily missed from the wrong direction. I stepped over Eamon’s bones at the entry point. The only thing left was a skeleton wrapped in his clothes. The bones were old and rotted looking. Vampires must degenerate to their actual age, because those bones looked five hundred years old.
“Ray?” I called. I knew he wouldn’t answer, but it made me feel good to think he might. I moved through the tunnel slowly. As I walked, it opened up. There were boulders jutting out from each side, closing the circumference considerably in places and making it more like a maze than a tunnel. As I paced farther in, I began to scent blood. The sulfur smell was less concentrated in here, and my nose was clearing.
It was Ray’s blood.
There was no mistaking it. I came along the edge of a shallow boulder and closed my eyes. He was behind it. His scent was all over the place. I didn’t really want to see. He was human, and therefore his weakness had always been a liability. This was the probable outcome of the journey. I’d known it going in—not that he would be eaten by a vampire, but that his chances of surviving this were slim to none. I had no idea how he’d found his way in with Tyler and Danny. I’d have to ask them. My best guess was that Naomi must have inadvertently dropped him by a backdoor entrance and they had met up in the maze of tunnels. This mountain clearly had many.
If he’d stayed on top of the mountain like we’d instructed him to, he’d be alive right now, complaining about how long it had taken us to get back. But, in the end, he’d done his best to help me. “Ray, can you hear me?” I called. There was no answer. Of course.
I stepped slowly around the boulder.