Текст книги "The Underworld"

Автор книги: Jessica Sorensen

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Chapter 17

“So he’s been lying this whole time,” Laylen said, stunned. “I can’t believe it.”

“I can,” I told him. “The first time I ever met Nicholas, he pretended he was just a normal guy in the grocery store, not some faerie/Foreseer there to make me go to the City of Crystal with him.”

After Nicholas had disappeared with the Ira, Laylen and I had sat down on the velvet purple sofa. The house was silent. After Laylen had finally told Aislin that Alex had gone away to the City of Crystal to fulfil a promise to Dyvinius, she got super stressed out. So Adessa had taken her out for the day, to get her mind off of things.

I explained to Laylen in detail what had happened between Nicholas and me, and what I saw in my Underworld vision. But what we were going to do about it, I didn’t have a clue. And neither did Laylen.

“I still can’t believe it,” Laylen mumbled, shaking his head. “Why would he go through all that trouble to hang around here if he was never planning on taking you there—if he couldn’t take you there?” I shook my head, feeling more frustrated than I ever had—the prickle had confirmed this just a few minutes ago. “Who knows…But what I want to know is why I saw myself down in The Underworld…and with Alex. If I actually saw us there, doesn’t that mean there’s a good chance it will actually happen? We just have to find a way to do it.”

Laylen contemplated this while fiddling with his lip ring that looped his bottom lip. “You said Alex was there…” He scratched his head. “Okay, well I think that might be where we need to start.”

“With Alex?” I gave him a quizzical look. “But he’s not here…and we don’t know when he’ll be back.”

“Here’s the thing, Gemma.” Laylen leaned in toward me, his face holding such seriousness. “I think you’re going to have to make a choice here on whether or not you think we should go get him, because for one thing, if you saw him in The Underworld with you, you’re probably going to need him. Also, with as pissed off as Nicholas probably is right now, Alex may be in some serious trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” I asked. “Alex never really explained what he was going to be doing there…Do you know, though?”

Laylen’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed hard. “I think Alex didn’t tell you because he thought it’d be better if you didn’t know.”

“It’s bad, though, right?” I shook my head. “Well, obviously it has to be bad, otherwise someone would have already told me what he was doing…Are they like hurting him or something?”

Laylen didn’t answer, but his silence said it all.

Knowing that Alex was getting hurt…Well, it was making me hurt. Literally. I could actually feel this ache in every part of my body. I think it was at this moment that I realized that Alex’s and my electric connection might be even deeper than I’d originally thought.

I remembered the vision where I saw him and me as children, sitting on the floor of the little hide out, with our hands pressed together whispering secret words in Latin. Such a strange moment, considering how we were now. What had changed? Me losing my soul? Or was it something else—something more?

As I sat there next to Laylen, thinking about all of this, I suddenly became extremely aware that whether I wanted to save Alex or not, I had to. It really wasn’t my decision to make. It was my connection with him that was going to make the decision, and the connection was telling me I had to go save him. It was a weird feeling.

“So how do we do it?” I took a shaky breath. “How do we get Alex out of the City of Crystal?”

“So then you want to do it?” Laylen asked. “You want to go get him?”

I nodded. “I think I have to. I mean, if I saw him in The Underworld with me, it probably means he has to be with me when I go there. Although I don’t have the slightest clue how we’re going to get there, since Nicholas took the Ira with him.”

“Okay…Well, do you have any ideas about on how to get us into the City of Crystal?” Laylen rubbed the back of his neck tensely. “Because it might take some time to find a Foreseer who will lend us their little ruby crystal ball that they use to travel to and from the city.

Besides, we kind of need to do this on our own so no one knows we’re there.”

“I completely agree.” I told him. “And I think I know a way.”

Chapter 18

Those few days I’d spent with Nicholas ended up not being a total waste of my time. He’d covered a lot about Foreseers and the way that the use the crystals energy to go in and out of visions. He also explained to me that the crystals energy wasn’t just for going into visions. It was also used every time Nicholas entered the City of Crystal. And apparently, all of the individual crystal balls ran off of the energy belonging to a massive crystal ball that stood in the center of the city.

All the crystals balls were connected. Because of this, I had an idea that if I really tried, I just might be able to get us into the City of Crystal without a ruby-filled ball, thanks to my unique gift of being able to use the crystals energy without actually having to have a crystal ball present.

But it was going to be tricky. I not only had to get us into the city, but I also had to get us into the city in present time, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to communicate with anyone, or touch anything. This was the reason why Foreseers used the ruby-filled crystal ball to get in and out of the city, because it took them there in the present time.

Although I was a bit skeptical that I could actually pull it off, it was all I had at the moment. So I started practicing day and night. At first, I couldn’t even figure out how to jumpstart whatever was sending me into visions. But then I caught on that it was connected to my emotions. Take for instances, when I was bitten by Vladislav. There had been a ton of emotion running through me then, which was why I think I ended up slipping into a vision. And when I’d drifted away while sitting on the couch with Laylen, I had been retrieving some of my lost memories, which, like Alex had pointed out once, were very deeply connected to my emotions.

So, after a lot of practice, I figured out that nine out of ten times experiencing an intense emotion equaled vision access. Of course, this put a lot of pressure on my newfound ability to experience emotion. And experiencing one on demand didn’t always work out the way that I wanted.

It was with Laylen’s help that I finally started to get the hang of things.

It was my fifth practice day, and Laylen and I were in the room he was staying in. I was sitting on the bed with my legs crossed, facing him as he sat in a chair he’d dragged over beside the bed.

“So what do you want to feel today?” he asked me.

“Happy, sad, scared, worried.”

“Not worried,” I said quickly. “That one is not fun at all, and when we used that feeling last time, I ended up getting stuck in the vision for awhile, like the feeling wasn’t strong enough to last or something.”

“True,” Laylen agreed. “Besides, the scared one, I think, was my favorite.”

I shook my head. “No it wasn’t—you almost gave me a heart attack."

He smiled, this beautiful, pleased smile. “Yeah, but it was fun.”

I shook my head, thinking how in no way, shape, or form was Laylen jumping out from behind a closed door to scare me fun. “Well, let’s not do that one, okay. Let’s do something else—something easier on my heart.”

He gave me an intrigued look. “How about we try happy? We haven’t done that one yet.”

My mouth instantly fell to a frown. “We haven’t done that one yet, because I’m not sure I know how to feel happy yet. Well, I mean sometimes when I look at the stars I think I might feel happy…but I don’t know. I think it might be a different kind of happiness then what you’re talking about. Maybe not, though…I don’t know…”

He didn’t look at me with sympathy like I’d expected him to do, but more with determination. “Well, then I think it’s about time you knew for sure if you have.” Oh, Laylen. Sometimes he made my heart ache—

in a good way. “I wish it was that easy, but…I mean, how—how do we do it—make me happy.”

“You can’t force happiness, it just comes.” He leaned back in his chair, his face twisted in deep thought. “I think you and I both could use a little bit of fun…a little bit of relaxation.”

I stared at him like he was insane. “How are we supposed to relax, when we’ve got so many non-relaxing things to deal with?”

“We take a break,” he said as if it were that uncomplicated.

“You say it as if it’s that simple, but it’s not. I mean, we can’t go anywhere, since we have Stephan, the Death Walkers, Demetrius, and a lot of vampires after us,” I told him, counting out the list on my fingers.

“Besides, do you know how to have fun, because I don’t?”

He got a look on his face that could only be described as a look someone got when they were about to do something they weren’t supposed to. “I think I have an idea.”

“This is what you think will make me have fun and be happy,” I asked Laylen, staring up at the enormous roll ercoaster, the tracks twisting and turning and flipping in loops, like a giant death trap. And the busy sidewalk we were standing on made me even more uneasy. All it would take was for one wrong person to walk by us and we’d be screwed. But Laylen had sworn that we would be fine, because almost everything that was after at us, more than likely wouldn’t come out during the daytime; and that the bundles and bundles of people roaming around would keep us inconspicuous.

However, I wasn’t as optimistic. Being around people had never really been my thing. And when I had a crazy man with a scar, and his yellow-eyed, Chil of Death assailants after me, being around a huge group of people was definitely not my thing.

“This is what you think will make me feel happy?” I asked again just to make sure I understood him right.

“A roll ercoaster?”

Laylen nodded, looking absolutely sure.

So we headed up.

I couldn’t believe I was doing this. Riding a roll ercoaster—never in a million years would I have ever thought I would be doing such a thing; and doing such a thing when we were being hunted.

But Laylen was persistent, guiding me along as we weaved up the aisle, until we reached the ticket area, where he purchased two tickets, and then the cashier sent us on our way to the loading area.

It was there that I realized that my jittery nerves weren’t just because I was worried we might run into someone. I was also jittery about the idea of getting on a roll ercoaster. So by the time I slid onto the leather seat in the far back cart, I was trembling.

“You’ll be fine,” Laylen assured me, pulling down the bars that would—hopefully—hold him in the cart when it whipped upside down.

I pulled down my bars and secured them tightly against my shoulders. I heard someone from the front let out a scream as the cart started to creak forward. I held as still as a statue, my hands gripping the bars tightly. The wheels clanked as the cart rose up the tracks; the brightness of the sun glared in my eyes.

There was a pause, where the cart just hovered at the top, and for a split second I thought we were stuck, but then it lurched forward and dropped. Then we were flying, wind blowing through my hair as the car went up and down, flipping loops and taking sharp turns. In the beginning I was terrified, but by the end I was laughing. And I mean really laughing. I wanted to hold onto this moment with every ounce of strength I had in me and never let it go.

By the time we stepped off of the cart and back onto the ground, I had tears rolling down my cheeks.

“Was I right or what?” Laylen asked, grinning from ear to ear.

I nodded, wiping my tears from my cheeks. It was the first time I’d ever had to wipe tears of happiness away. Who would have thought riding a roll ercoaster would have brought them out.

“So you’re happy?” Laylen asked, looking at me with hopeful eyes.

“Yeah…I think I am.” I felt the back of my neck where the prickle was poking and then I felt myself starting to fall. “I think I…I …” I was slipping away and before I crashed onto the floor, I grabbed a hold of Laylen’s arm. But instead of catching me, I ended up yanking him down with me.

Yanking us down, down, down as the City of Crystal flashed through my mind.

Chapter 19

My face smacked hard against the floor. And I mean hard.

I pushed myself up to my feet, rubbing my sure-to-have-a-goose-bump forehead. My jaw just about hit the floor when I noticed that my feet were planted firmly on top of a translucent crystal floor, a midnight river flowing beneath it, bits and pieces of gold twinkling in the water like stars. Dark red crystals hung from the glittery charcoal ceiling above, and to the side of me, rubies waved across the snow-white crystal walls.

The City of Crystal.

I can’t believe I’d pulled it off. I felt like such a bad ass.

I glanced to the side of me, praying that Laylen would be standing there, but he wasn’t.

“Laylen,” I called out quietly, my eyes searching the cave. The sound of a light breeze was the only thing that answered me back. “Laylen?” I started to walk toward a bridge that was paved with broken pieces of porcelain. “Are you here?

A soft bang came from behind me, and I spun around, afraid of what I would find, but my racing heart instantly settled when I saw Laylen.

I let out a breath of relief. “For a second, I thought I didn’t bring you with me.”

“For a second, I thought I died.” He glanced around at the cave made of glass and crystal. “This place is…interesting.”

“Yeah, it is” I agreed. “Wait…You haven’t been here before?”

He shook his head, his fingers tracing the rubies curving along the crystal wall. “Not too many people have.”

People? Neither of us were really considered people, were we? In fact, everyone I knew had a mark of some sort. “So, which way do you think will take us to Alex?” I asked him.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Laylen dropped his hand from the wall and turned to me. “You’ve been here before, though, so your guess is probably better.”

“Well, you know what Alex is doing down here,” I pointed out. “So if you’d tell me…”

He considered this, and then said, “He’s doing something with this big crystal ball that channels energy to all the Foreseer’s crystal balls…But Gemma, I’m warning you that if we do find him, it’s not going to be pretty.”

“How so?” I asked. “I mean, what’s he doing with this big crystal that’s so bad?”

Laylen swept his bangs away from his face, looking uncomfortable “Well …that big crystal collects its energy from…people. And the way the energy is collected…it’s pretty bad from what I’ve been told.” I nodded, trying to ignore the sickening feeling building in my stomach. “Okay, I remember Nicholas mentioning a big crystal ball. I think he said it was in the heart of the City of Crystal, whatever that means.” Laylen glanced from left to right. “So which way?” Wow. It felt so weird to be the one in charge, but I guess I’d give the position my best try.

“Well …” I looked to my right, at the bridge paved of porcelain, which I knew led to the Palace. Then I looked to my left, where all I could see was the crystal floor stretching down the cave. Having to pick between the two choices, I decided that it would be best to head away from the Palace because I figured we’d more likely get caught by someone if we went that way. “I say we go left.”

“Left it is,” Laylen said and we started off to our left.

“So, do you think Nicholas was up to something, or do you think he was just hanging around?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

“He could have been just hanging around,” Laylen said. “He seems to have a deep fascination with you.”

“I don’t know why, though.” I shook my head. “No one’s ever wanted to hang around me before.” Laylen gave me a strange look. “Why do you think that?”

I shrugged. “Because I never had any friends in school, well until Alex came along, but that was just him trying to figure out why I started to feel again. He wasn’t hanging around me because he wanted to.”

“Gemma.” Laylen’s voice was deep—pressing.

“The only reason you never had any friends was because of how you were. But that’s not how you really are, and you need to realize that. And trust me, Alex enjoys being around you more than he lets on.”

“If that’s true,” I said, dragging my fingers along the wall as we walked, “then it’s because of the electricity.”

“Trust me, it’s more than that.” He pondered something for a good-long while before continuing.

“Alex puts on this huge front when it comes to how he feels about things, but if you’ve known him for as long as I have, then you’d know it’s mostly an act.” I was just about to open my mouth and tell him that I still didn’t believe that Alex liked being around me, but the sound of approaching footsteps made me stop.

Laylen and I froze, and we both shot a quick glance behind us. But there was nothing.

“Where’s it coming from,” I whispered.

He shook his head, and scooted us over to the side of the path, where we stepped off of a ledge and down onto a glistening surface of blue glass that was as slippery as ice. He took my hand, and we hurried over to a massive crystal pill ar that coiled down from the ceiling and connected to the ground. Right as we tucked ourselves behind the pill ar, I caught a glimpse of a tall figure walking down the path.

“Someone’s coming,” I whispered to Laylen.

He gave me a nervous glance and then carefully peeked around the pill ar. “What the…”

“Who is it?” I whispered.

“There’s no one there,” he told me, shaking his head.

I furrowed my eyebrows and then peeked around the pill ar. I, however, was met by a pair of golden eyes that belonged to a very tricky faerie/Foreseer.

I jerked backward, but Nicholas caught me by the arm and reeled me into him. He moved away from the pill ar, backing across the slippery glass at a speed I’d never be able to pull off.

“I knew you’d show up here,” Nicholas breathed in my ear, still backing us away from the pill ar—and from Laylen. “I knew you would come and try to save him.” I fought to get free, but my feet kept slipping out from under me.

Nicholas whirled me around, wrapped his arms around me, and pulled me forcefully against him. “Try anything funny, and I’ll have you out of here before you can even blink.”

“Nicholas,” Laylen called out as he chased after us.

“Let her go.”

“Come any closer,” Nicholas warned, holding up the ruby-filled crystal ball that apparently he had in his hand the entire time. “And I’ll have her out of her before you can reach us.”

Laylen slid to a halt, but a look of rage on his face stayed.

“Wise choice,” Nicholas said, his damp breath hitting my cheek.

“What do you want?” Laylen asked, his bright blue eyes targeted on Nicholas.

Nicholas traced a finger down my cheek, sending a shiver crawling down my spine. “I have what I want right here.”

Yuck. I was so tired of ending up like this—trapped against Nicholas.

Laylen got this look on his face, like he was trying really hard to figure out how to free me from Nicholas before he took me away from the City of Crystal. I was panicking with the thought that Nicholas would end up winning. And if he did then…Well, I didn’t even want to think about the possibilities of what would happen if he did.

Nicholas strengthened his hold on me, the ruby-filled ball glowing in his hand. He was breathing deep, his chest rising and falling, as he raised the crystal ball up in the air. There was a blur of colors that swooshed toward us and then came a loud crack, followed by a soft thump.

I learned something new.

Vampires are fast. And I mean fast.

One second Laylen had been a ways away from us, and the next second he was right there.

It was amazing.

Another second and he’d knocked Nicholas out.

Yep, actually knocked him out…I think.

“Is he…alive?” I asked, staring down at Nicholas’s body sprawled across the icy blue glass.

“Yeah, he’s good—just unconscious.” Laylen bent down and looped his arms underneath Nicholas’s arms. “We’ll let him sleep it off, and hopefully we’ll be long gone by the time he wakes up.”

“And what if we’re not?” I asked scooting out of the way so Laylen could drag Nicholas behind the pill ar.

“Guess we’ll have to make sure we hurry.”

“Hurry?” I looked around at the giant cave we were standing in. “But we still don’t know where to go.” Laylen didn’t say anything, only taking my arm to help me keep my balance as we walked back across the icy, blue glass. By the time we’d stepped back up onto the translucent crystal floor, I was extremely worried. Nicholas could wake up at any moment, and he probably would be super pissed when he did. And we still needed to find Alex.

As I rattled my brain for a solution on how to do this, besides searching the entire city for him, something shocked me in the back. At first I thought I’d imagined it—that my brain was searching for an answer and had created the shock on its own. But then it happened again, and I knew.

“Alex is close,” I sputtered out as I felt another spark, this time in my fingertips.

“What?” Laylen asked, looking confused.

“He’s close…I can feel him.”

Realization slowly rose in his expression. “The electricity?”

I nodded, and then we were running, following the path of electricity like an invisible trail of bread crumbs, which would hopefully lead us right to Alex.

We kept running and running, going further into the cave, letting my electric sensors steer us as the sparks grew hotter and hotter, until they were going so wild I thought I was going to combust into flames. And when we reached a pair of silver doors, with the Foreseers mark on the top of each one, I knew Alex had to be behind them.

“You think he’s in there?” Laylen asked as I reached for the doorknob.

I nodded, slowly turning the handle, and pushed open the door. And what I saw made my stomach churn. People wrapped in chains that were binding them to a crystal ball the size of a football stadium.

And all those people…well, they looked dead.