Текст книги "The Underworld"

Автор книги: Jessica Sorensen

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Chapter 33

Back during my first visit to the City of Crystal, Dyvinius had explained to me how visions work. He said that if a vision wasn’t read correctly then the world as we knew it could shift. I never considered that we just might be playing with fire when Nicholas and I had been bouncing around in and out of visions.

And the vision where I took Nicholas and myself to The Underworld had never really been finished.

Nicholas had freaked out and made me take us back to Adessa’s before I was able to see the entire outcome of the vision. I have been so stupid not realizing this, and now I have dragged Alex into a mess he hadn’t known he was getting dragged into.

Crap. I couldn’t believe this was happening. What other things had changed because I hadn’t been careful? Playing with visions was such a risky thing.

And now I had no idea what was going to happen.

“I have to say,” said the Queen. “It isn’t every day that someone voluntarily enters my world. Usually, it’s with much force and fussing. And yet you two are here, entering it on your own free will. Tell me, what has brought you here?” She wasn’t being kind; she was taunting us—I could hear it in her voice.

“We came here to get something,” Alex told her in a firm voice.

“Ah, I see.” She eyed us over with her empty eyes and then turned around and motioned to us to follow her.

While she had her back turned, I leaned over and whispered in Alex’s ear. “This isn’t right.” He gave me a look like I was insane. “What isn’t right?”

“This isn’t how I saw the vision go,” I whispered, and his eyes widened.

We followed the Queen back down the tunnel, past the cluster of floating Water Faeries, and up a set of marble stairs, which led us to a room that had a long antique table trailing down the center, and a massive chandelier hanging from the ceiling. There were no crystals decorating the chandelier, but pieces of thorn-covered wire that were bended and turned in every direction. Covering the dirt walls were twisted pieces of vines that looked like seaweed.

“Have a seat,” the Queen told us, gesturing to the chairs trimming the table.

Alex and I did what she asked, and then she took a seat at the head of the table. There was a long pause while she sat, watching us.

“So you’ve come here for something, have you?” she finally asked.

“Someone, actually,” Alex told her. “Her name is Jocelyn Lucas.”

I could tell right away that the Queen knew who we were talking about—you could see it in her face.

“Tell me boy, what is your name?” the Queen asked.

“Alex Avery,” Alex said with some hesitance.

“Ah, I see. You’re a Keeper.” She moved her attention to me. “And you? What is your name?”

“Gemma Lucas,” I told her, forcing my voice to come out steady.

Darkness masked her face. “So you are what? The daughter of Jocelyn?”

I nodded. God, I hoped she knew nothing of the star.

“I see.” The Queen tapped her sharp fingernails on the top of the table. “So what did you expect? That you would come down here and demand I give you my best slave, all because you asked?”

“No,” Alex said, “We’ve actually brought something to trade for Jocelyn’s freedom.”

“I can assure you, Alex, that you have nothing I want,” the Queen replied with a disdainful manner.

Alex slipped the sapphire teardrop diamond out of his pocket and held it up for the Queen to see. “Not even for this.”

She looked surprised, which I took as a good sign…at first. But then she started to laugh, the high pitched laugh that rang sorely against my eardrums and shook at the chandelier.

I gave Alex a glance, and he shrugged.

The Queen stopped laughing and her laughter swiftly shifted to anger. “You think that you can come down here, and try to make a bargain with me with something the Keepers took from me to begin with.” She rose from her chair, towering over us. “How dare you insult me. You are just like your father. Taking whatever you want and doing whatever you please.” I wanted to bang my head against the table. Was there anyone who didn’t have a grudge against Stephan? Probably not, but still …

“I have been waiting for the day when I would see your father again and settle what he started a long time ago.” The Queen sauntered toward us, her eyes locked on Alex.

Alex, being Alex, held her petrifying gaze. “I understand that you may have had some issues with my father, but I can assure you that—”

“Silence.” The Queen’s loud voice caused the dirt walls to quake. “I don’t want to hear any excuses. I always swore to myself that one day I would get even with Stephan, whatever it took. And here you are…It’s the perfect opportunity. A much smaller version of him, of course, but still it’ll do.”

“He’s nothing like his father,” I said abruptly, and then shrank back when the Queen focused her attention on me. My body quivered but I pressed on.

“And he only came down here because I asked him to

–so I could get my mother.”

The Queen’s face was not full of anger, but of inquisitiveness. She walked back to her chair, but didn’t sit down. “You know Jocelyn has never mentioned having a daughter, so I find it rather peculiar that someone would show up with the son of one of my sworn enemies and claim to be her daughter.”

“Well, I am,” I assured her. “And I want to take her back with me.”

“Take her back?” She started laughing again. “Oh, I’m afraid there’s no way I can do that. You see, you can’t take her back with you, because you yourself are never leaving.”

“No, we can leave,” I told her, but my certainty that I really could was questionable. “I came here through the Ira, and you can’t keep us here—there are laws that say you can’t.”

Alex shot me a look that warned me I was treading on very thin water.

“Oh I’m afraid that’s where you are wrong,” The Queen said. “The Ira was created for the leader of the Foreseers to enter The Underworld. Therefore the law of releasing only applies to him.” She smiled a big empty smile before gesturing her hand around the room. “So Gemma and Alex, let me welcome you to your new home.”

Chapter 34

“Let me welcome you to your new home.” The Queen’s words kept running through my head like a plague. You could see it on her face that she got some sort of sick, twisted pleasure when she told us we couldn’t leave. Which wasn’t surprising. She was the Queen of a world that ran on fear.

But don’t get me wrong, I still tried to get us out of there. I tried so hard to blink us out of that horrible place that I gave myself a splitting headache.

After the Queen declared we were never allowed to leave, she locked Alex and I in a cement chamber that had a single bed in it. It was like being in a jail cell, except there were no bars on the door.

The Queen was probably going to keep us here until she was ready to begin our torture sessions, where we would end up being faerie food. Or at least our fear would. Fear was not a new emotion for me—I have felt it many, many times. So I knew that in order to bring it out of a person, something bad had to happen.

“I’m really starting to wonder just how long the list of people who my father has pissed off is,” Alex said.

We had been sitting on the bed, staring at the cement walls for awhile, so the sound of his voice startled me a little.

“Probably pretty long,” I said, and he shot me dirty a look. “Sorry, but it’s probably the truth. I mean, he walks with the Death Walkers, betrays the Keepers, forces faeries to help him all because of a Blood Promise made ages ago. And he’s also pissed off the Queen of the dead for who knows what reason.

That list, right there, is really long.” Alex let out a sigh. “Yeah, you’re probably right. We probably will be running into a lot more people who hate him.”

I was right. What the…

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.

I kept looking at him the same way. “Like what?”

“Like I just shocked the heck out of you.” I shrugged. “I don’t know…because you said I was right.”

He stared at me perplexedly, as if he was trying to figure something out.

“So what are we going to do?” I asked. “I mean, are we going to be able to get out of here?” He let out a loud breath as he ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know Gemma. I don’t even know what exactly happened. I mean, do you have any idea why this didn’t work out like how you saw in the vision?

I massaged the sides of my temples, trying to force my headache away. “Because I didn’t finish seeing the vision, at least that’s what I think happened.

Nicholas forced me to take us away before I saw the whole thing play out.” Someone screamed not too far away, and I shivered. “I’m sorry,” I said.

Alex cocked an eyebrow at me. “Sorry for what?”

“For messing this up.”

He shook his head, dragging the knife he brought with along him on the frame of the bed. “You didn’t mess this up. I did, by being my father’s son.”

“Well, I think we can also put a little bit of the blame on Nicholas.” The mention of faerie boy’s name caused an acidic taste to burn in the back of my throat. “For not giving us all the details about how the Ira works. Although, we never should have trusted him to begin with.”

“Yeah, I know,” Alex leaned back against the cement wall and folded his arms across his chest.

“What will they do to us?” I asked quietly. “The Water Faeries—what will they do to instil fear in us?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, and I knew he was lying by how he avoided looking at me.

“Just tell me,” I said tiredly and slumped back against the cement wall. “I think I need to know what I’m in store for.”

He locked eyes with me. “You really want to know?” he asked, and I nodded, even though I felt like I was being choked. “Okay, well to put it simply you’re in store for a lot of pain.”

I nodded, the choking feeling practically strangling me to death.

It got quiet. Noises of dripping water filled our little concrete prison in a way that was almost maddening.

Pain. I was going to be in a lot of pain. But, was he talking about the physical kind of pain or the emotional kind?

“Look,” he said, before I could ask him to clarify which kind of pain he was referring to. “No matter what happens, I need you to hold on, okay? No matter how bad things get, don’t give up.”

The idea of not giving up was suddenly eating away at me. “But wouldn’t it be better if I didn’t hold on? If I just let myself go?”

He looked alarmed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know…” The prickle was starting to poke at me. Poke, poke, poke. I scratched viciously at the back of my neck. “It means, wouldn’t things be better if I was gone?”

His eyes widened, and he looked as if he was freaking out. Not the reaction I was expecting, but okay. “Wh—why are you saying this?” he asked.

The prickle was really going at it. “Because, it would be better for a whole lot of people if I was. I mean, if I might be the one who’s going to open the portal instead of closing it, wouldn’t that make me be responsible for everyone’s deaths?”

“Where did you get the idea that you’re what’s going to open up the portal.”

“It’s kind of obvious, once I really thought about it. I mean Stephan’s working with the Death Walkers, bares the Mark of Malefiscus, and I saw him in that vision where the world had ended in ice. What do all those things have in common? They’re all bad. So why would Stephan want the star’s power for anything good.”

Alex rubbed his hands across his face, I think, maybe to hide the fact that he thought the same thing I did. When he dropped his hands, though, the look on his face took me back.

“I don’t care what you think the star’s energy is being used for.” His bright green-eyed gaze burned into me. “We came down here to save your mom, so we could try to piece this all together and come up with a plan to stop it. And until we get all that done you can’t give up. You can’t give up before we’ve really even tried, okay?”

Who was this guy sitting next to me, staring at me with such an intense look of determination in his eyes? Yeah, I knew it was Alex, but not the Alex who I first met.

“Okay,” I said, forcing my strange “giving up feeling” away for the moment. “I won’t give up until we’ve tried.”

He nodded and we both sat there in the silence again, staring at the cement wall in front of us. Alex put his knife back in his pocket, slid his hand over, and set it on top of mine. I shut my eyes and let the buzzing take me away from this horrible place. I let in deafen out the screams. I let it sweep me away.

Chapter 35

Alex and I stayed the way we were until the door to our cell swung open. When I opened my eyes, I saw that a Water Faerie was hovering in the doorway. I thought about running—knocking the Water Faerie down and bolting for an exit. Although there wasn’t anywhere for me to go…“Oh my God,” I breathed.

Alex looked from the Water Faerie to me. “It’ll be okay, Gemma. Just make sure you hold on.” I grabbed his arm, my eyes widening as I whispered, “I think I might know a way to get out of here.”

“What?” he said loudly and I shushed him.

“It’s time.” The Queen appeared in the doorway.

“Both of you follow me.”

I got to my feet, but Alex just sat there staring at me, still shocked by what I said. He was probably wondering how the heck I could know there was a way out of here. The only reason I did know there might be a way out was because of Laylen’s and my trip to see Vladislav. See, during our visit, when we asked Vladislav if anyone had ever escaped The Underworld, he said yes, and then added that most of the people who do try to escape drown during the attempt. So there was another way out of here besides through the Ira. There was a way by water.

But where was the water? The Underworld was supposed to be below the lake so…I glanced up at the ceiling, at the water dripping down from it.

“Hurry up!” The Queen roared.

Alex got to his feet, and we followed the Queen out of the cell and into the tunnel, which was lined with jail cell doors. We had gone a ways when Alex grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

“What do you mean, you know a way to escape?” he whispered. “Where is it?”

“When Laylen and I went and saw Vladislav,” I said, speaking so quickly I tripped over my words. “He said people had escaped before. But most of them drowned.”

He took in what I said. “So we need to find water.” I pointed up at the ceiling, at the water seeping through the cracks. “We need to go up.” Alex reached up and touched the muddy ceiling with his finger tips. “So there has got to be an exit somewhere that takes us up.”

“What are you two doing back there!” The Queen’s fuming voice boomed down the tunnel. “Get up here now.”

We hurried and caught up with her. Alex still had his thinking face on, and I could tell he was trying to come up with some sort of plan to get us out of here. I still felt a little skeptical, though, because we still had to find where the way out was, and we also needed to figure out a way to get away from the Queen and her Water Faeries.

But all thoughts of escaping left my mind, when we reached where the Queen was taking us. In fact all of my thoughts disappeared and were replaced by one thing.

Fear.

They say torture is…well, torture. But this was so much worse than I’d expected. Water Faeries were floating around everywhere. But that was the easiest part to take in. The worst were the peoples’ screams that filled up the room. I knew Alex told me that the people who were sentenced here were bad, but it didn’t mean that what was being done to them was right. Each one of them was strapped down on a wooden table, being tortured in various ways, but each one looked equally painful. My stomach rolled at the sight of one man in particular that had his arm twisted in a way that an arm should not be twisted.

“Don’t look at them,” Alex said and I looked away from the torture chamber.

But not looking at them couldn’t block out the sounds…the cries…the pain.

The only thing I could be thankful for at the moment was that the Queen took us to a different room that had cement walls thick enough to muffle out the screams. In the room, there was a single chair that had straps attached to the arms.

The Queen turned to face us. “Tell me Gemma.

What is it your most afraid of?”

I swallowed hard. She was so asking the wrong person this question. Fear was such a new thing to me, and the only thing I could think of that would qualify as my most-afraid-of thing was Stephan and the Death Walkers.

“I don’t know,” I said, sounding weak. I hated that I sounded weak.

“You don’t know?” She looked at me intriguingly and a toothless grin spread across her face. “Well, I think it’s time you found out.” She raised her hand in the air and snapped her fingers. Two Water Faeries flew up to me and grabbed me by the arms. I tried to pull away from them, but their bony fingers had freakishly strong grips.

“Stop!” Alex called out. “I’ll go first.”

“Oh no,” said the Queen with amusement in her voice. “I have a feeling that you watching her get tortured is probably going to bring out just as much fear, as if it were you getting tortured yourself.” Alex started to protest, but the Queen silenced him.

Then two Water Faeries came up behind Alex and grabbed him by the arms, holding him where he stood. He tried to fight and pull away, but like I already mentioned the Water Faeries are freakishly strong.

Apparently, even stronger than a Keeper.

The two Water Faeries dragged me over to the chair and one held down my arms, while the other strapped me to the chair. Once they let go of me, I tried to yank my arms free from the straps, but the only thing that accomplished was my sore wrists aching even more.

“Oh good. She’s already getting scared,” the Queen said, pleased. There was this long gap that passed before she said to the Water Faeries, “Well, get on with it.”

They hovered beside me, and suddenly they were in front of me, their eyeless eyes so close to my face that I now realized they had actual eye sockets, just no eyeballs. I almost threw up.

“Now, which way to go here?” the Queen dithered.

“Oh, I know. Since you guys were so kind to bring it back to me.” She reached into the pocket of her white dress and pulled out the teardrop-shaped sapphire diamond. “Let’s use this to torture her soul.” Was she serious? Torture my soul. My soul. No freaking way.

Panicking, I yanked at the straps, pulling and tugging as hard as I could. But it was useless. The Queen handed the diamond to one of the Water Faeries and it came face-to-face with me. As it reached its bony fingers toward my mouth with the diamond resting in its hand, I couldn’t help but let out the most blood curdling scream.

And then….it dropped to the floor.

Chapter 36

Okay, I should probably explain what happened a little bit better. The Water Faerie dropped to the floor, not my soul. It’s body hit the cement floor with a loud thump, along with every other faerie in the room, including the Queen herself.

There was this moment where Alex and I just looked at each other with wide eyes, and then Alex was running for me.

“What the heck happened?” I asked, as he worked to get the straps unfastened.

“I have no idea,” he said, slipping the buckle loose.

“Let’s go.”

I jumped to my feet, and we ran passed the lifeless bodies of the Water Faeries and out the door. To our shock, the Water Faeries, who had been in that room, had sank to the floor as well.

I stood there gaping at the scene in sheer and utter bewilderment.

One of the men strapped to a table begged me to free him. “Come on little girl,” he said. “Just undo the straps, okay. I promise I don’t bite.”

“Gemma.” Alex’s voice brought me back to reality.

“Come on.” His hand was extended out to me.

I glanced at the man, who was still begging me to let him go.

“They’re here for a reason,” Alex said. “Now come on. We have to go, before they…” he glanced at the faeries lifeless bodies scattered across the floor.

“Wake up, I guess?”

I nodded—he was right. I took his hand, and we sprinted down the tunnel.

“We have to find water,” Alex said as we ran toward where the cell doors were.

“Wait,” I said, pulling back. “We have to find my mom first?”

He shook his head, trying to drag me forward. “No, we have to go. We don’t know how long they’ll be out.”

“I’m not going without her,” I said sternly, refusing to budge. “I came down here to rescue her, and I’m not leaving until I do. Besides, this is our only chance to free her—we’ll never be able to come back.”

“We have no idea where she is,” he argued. “It could take forever.”

“Fine.” I slipped my hand free from his and dodged around him. “You go find water,” I called over my shoulder, heading for a cell door, “But I’m going to go find my mom.”

Alex let out a frustrated breath, but he followed after me. “Gemma, we need to go now.”

Ignoring him, I unlatched the first cell door I came across and opened it up. The room was empty. “We’ll never get answers if we don’t find her…” I hurried to the next cell door and opened it up. Empty again.

“Like you said, she knows things. That’s why she’s down here.” I unlocked a third door, starting to wonder if maybe I was on the wrong track with the cell doors.

“And if we don’t get some answers, the world’s going to end. I’ve seen….” I opened the third door and immediately trailed off, my jaw dropping at the sight of a woman, sitting on the bed, wearing ratted old clothes. Her brown hair trailed down her back, and her bright blue irises were as blank as my eyes had been before I experienced the prickle. But despite the blank look, I knew…she was my mother.

Her head slowly turned and she looked at me, but there was no recognition that she knew who I was.

“Mom,” I whispered. The word felt so strange coming out of my mouth.

She blinked at me, but that was it. There was nothing there—no life, no spark, no nothing.

“Jocelyn,” Alex said, from over my shoulder. “Are you alright?”

Still, my mother stared at us with nothing more than a look of emptiness.

I felt like I might start crying, but knew I couldn’t.

Now was not the time to shed tears.

“What should we do?” I asked Alex.

He considered this carefully. “Go over and take her hand, but move slowly—see if you can get her to come with us.”

I looked at him with terrified eyes. “Maybe you should do it?”

He shook his head. “No, this is something I think you have to do.”

Whether he was right or not, I took a deep breath and made my way cautiously into the room. My mother made no reaction, just sitting there, her hands resting on her lap.

“Mom,” I said, reaching my hand out toward her. “It’s Gemma…your daughter.”

She looked at me, and then suddenly, she was really looking at me. She got to her feet and moved in for a hug, but then pulled back quickly, cradling her arms across her chest.

“Gemma,” she said, not looking happy, but horrified. “What are you two doing down here.” Her voice was sharp and it made me cower back. “You shouldn’t be down here.”

“We came here to save you.” My voice wobbled.

“Well, you shouldn’t have,” she said sternly. “How did you even get down here?”

“With an…Ira.”

Her eyes didn’t widen in surprise. In fact, she acted as if she predicted me to say that. “Well you have to leave now.”

Easier said than done. “We would, but…my Foreseer power isn’t working at the moment.” She shook her head. “I was hoping that would skip you.”

What the heck was she talking about? “Huh?” She started to say something else, but a loud cry, like an angry cat, screeched from somewhere.

“We have to go.” She rubbed her forehead. “But how am I supposed to get you out of here?”

“We need to get to water,” Alex told her as he entered the room. “There’s supposed to be a place somewhere down here that will take us up through the lake. A water route, maybe? Do you know where it is?”

“We can’t go anywhere.” She frowned. “The Fey will make us suffer if we try.”

“The Water Faeries are out for the moment,” Alex told her in a gentle voice. “So they can’t make you suffer. But we have to hurry before they wake up.” She stared at us in confusion, and then suddenly her eyes lit up. “Oh my God, I completely forgot about that.” She brushed past Alex and I and ran out into the tunnel.

Alex and I gave each other a look, and then we chased after her.

“Mom,” I yelled. “Where are you going?” She kept running down the tunnel, her bare feet thumping against the dirt floor. Another cat-like screech rang out from somewhere, and Alex and I sped up our pace and caught up with my mother.

“You forget things sometimes!” she shouted at us as we ran. “Being down here, it messes with your mind and sometimes you just forget.”

Forget what? Where the exit was? “But do you remember where it is now?” I asked.

She nodded, and a burst of adrenaline soared through me. We ran deeper into the darkness, weaving and turning through the tunnel. I crossed my fingers that my mom really knew where she was going. The cries and screams seemed to be filling the air more and more, and I worried that the Water Faeries were waking up. My mother seemed unbothered by the screams. She just kept running, and didn’t stop until we entered into the cave with the rocked-shaped throne that twisted up to the quartz ceiling.

My mom sprinted over to the throne and circled around it as she stared up at the ceiling. “When I first came here, I was told that if you climbed up the back of the throne it would take you to a place where you could escape. The problem was, I never had a chance to get away. And after awhile, I just sort of forgot about trying.” She stepped up onto the throne and climbed up the back of it. The twisting shape was like a slide, which made it hard to climb. But, even though it was tricky, she managed to make it all the way up with only a few slips, and then she disappeared through a small hole in the ceiling.

I looked at Alex, stunned.

“Alright,” he said, hopping up onto the throne. “Let’s go.” He reached up and pulled himself onto the back of the throne. I followed him, but I moved less gracefully than he did. I even managed to scrape my knee of the rock more than once. But finally, I was pulling myself up into the hole where my mom had disappeared.

It was dark up there, but there was a faint light streaming from someplace. A narrow tunnel stretched out on each side. The floor was muddy and water ran from the ceiling in sporadic bursts that had already soaked into my clothes and hair.

“Which way do we go now?” Alex asked my mom.

She glanced to the left, and then to the right. “I think this way,” she said and stumbled off to the right.

Alex and I ran after her. She seemed sort of dizzy, weaving from side to side as we sprinted down the tunnel. The further we went, the brighter the light became, until finally we were blinded by it.

A second later we stepped out onto a rocky ledge, and my heart stopped. At the edge of the ledge was a drop off. The height alone was astonishing, but the waterfal spewing over the side of the drop off was what sent my pulse racing the most. Well that, and the pool of water with a severe looking undercurrent that the waterfal poured down into.

Never did it occur to me, during our talk of our water escape that I would have to dive off a ledge into water that was probably going to suck me under. Oh and let’s not forget to mention the most important part. I couldn’t swim.

“So, what are we supposed to do?” I asked, my eyes locked on the waterfall. “Just jump. Because I’m not sure if I can make it.”

“Yeah…” he stared down at the water and then back at me. “I think—”

A shriek blared down the tunnel and I could now see them—the Water Faeries. They were still a ways away, gliding down the shadowy tunnel like ghosts.

“Crap,” Alex said, grabbing my hand. “Jocelyn, we need to—”

Before he could finish, my mother, who had been standing on the ledge, suddenly jumped.

I gasped and ran for the ledge. “Mom!” I couldn’t see her, only the violent water whirling. “Mom…” I whispered.

“Gemma.” Alex’s voices yanked me back to him.

“Grab on to me.”

“What?” I shook my head. “No.”

Alex looked my straight in the eyes. “Wrap your arms around my neck and hang on.”

I wasn’t sure I could do this—jump into the midst of raging water, when I couldn’t swim.

“I don’t think…” I glanced at the Water Faeries, who were so close now I could see the bareness in their eyes. I took a deep breath, summoning every ounce of strength I had in me, and wrapped my arms around Alex’s neck, linking my fingers together tightly.

Alex put his arms around my waist and pushed me so far into him I swear the electricity was going to weld us together. “Close your eyes,” he said, and I did, but not before I caught a glimpse of the Water Faeries about to emerge from the tunnel.

Another loud shriek, and then we dove.