Chapter Twelve
A heaviness pressed through this realm, as if its gravity were half again as strong as the world she knew. Twilight gathered around Sera, offering one last breath of respite before the deep darkness took over. That was when this place became most dangerous. She drew in a slow breath. Time to enter the Abyss. She stepped into the tunnel. Though the ceiling rose impossibly high above her, churning with its own storm-cloud weather, the passage itself narrowed around her until her shoulders barely fit, like a twisted Frank Lloyd Wright entrance hall. More than once, her elbows scraped against the rock where the tunnel dipped, curved, and straightened again. At last, it ended. Sera stopped short. She had known this otherworld existed, but knowing was nothing like seeing it. A city sprawled before her, larger than any she had ever seen, its windowless towers stabbing into the storm clouds. Beings of every wretched shape and size swarmed through the streets, their forms warped as if their souls had been wrenched out of shape by appetite. They sprinted, shuffled, crawled, and dragged themselves everywhere at once—ants in a shattered hill. Yet she was Seraphim: determined, focused, and now, it seemed, relentless. The word felt strange inside her. Less than an hour in the Abyss, and already the realm was reshaping her to survive it. She tried to shake the feeling off. It stayed. Should she go on? Sera pulled the hood of her T-shirt over her head and low across her face, hidden enough to pass, clear-sighted enough to endure. Then she stepped into the chaos.
As she moved deeper into the crush, a demon with scraggly leather wings and hungry eyes loomed over her. Sera growled at him. The sound came from somewhere low and unfamiliar inside her. Where did that come from? The demon looked away and stalked down a filthy street slick with something she did not want to name. It looked fecal. It smelled worse. Bits of trash skittered past her ankles. Was that a rotting ear on the sidewalk? When she reached an alley between two windowless buildings, she stopped. Cut off from her angelic senses, she could only stand there and absorb it all: the rot, the fog of darkness, the anger, the despair. A tiny bug split open a mouth far too wide for its body, tore into a rat with needle teeth, and grinned at her as it fed. Still, Sera listened. Where would she find his remnant? It weighed only three-quarters of an ounce. Would it be locked beneath one of these buildings? No. Too accessible to Abyss Dwellers who would crave such a delicacy. After all this time, would it still be viable? Deep. It had to be deep, and it had to be guarded.
Sera trekked on, eyes sharp, every nerve straining. Hours may have passed. Days. Time drifted here, unmoored and useless. At last, she stumbled to the edge of the city, where a ridge of mountains dropped like a trench into a dry ocean. The place felt right: far from the city’s ravenous inhabitants, deep enough to hide what she sought, and almost certainly guarded. She sank down near the descent, pulled a vial from her pocket, uncorked it, and swallowed the contents. Heat coursed through her system. Where would humans be without caffeine? She had added her own version of an energy boost, and she was going to need every drop. When she sent a thin ounce of power toward the bottom to scout ahead, the pulse stirred something below. Three scrambling spiders snapped toward her, skittering up the slope with fangs already chomping. No mercy here. Sera slammed her senses shut and slipped down the mountain.
Tears leaked down Sera’s face as she descended. Despair rolled over her in waves, each one heavy enough to buckle her knees. Faces protruded between the rocks of the downslope. One woman stared blankly ahead, her eyes lowered, emptied of hope. Beside her, a man lay flat against the ground and grinned up at Sera with angry, hungry eyes. He could see her. He could not touch her. The others watched from the rock with eyes lit by retribution, vengeance, rage, and despair, coating the spiral downward like a living wound. Sera’s compassion rose so fiercely it hurt. With every step, she wanted to shine her light over them, even one of them, but that was not why she had come. Each soul was here for a reason. Maybe not forever. But payment had been earned all the same.
At the bottom, she wound through curve after curve until the path ended in a cul-de-sac. Guards surrounded it. Rusted iron chains bound it. And there, nearly swallowed by darkness, was the remnant. Small. Barely functional. Holding only the tiniest spark.
Sera’s breath caught. Was she too late?