Page 19 of Broken Shadows (Corrupt Shadows Duet #2)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Evie

Remnants of dark rituals litter the open spaces. Half-burned black and purple candles, salt wrappers, and scorched rope lay captured under a scrawl of vines, as if the woods claimed the items for itself.

We must be close.

I place a hand on Gomez’s back, keeping him in place on my shoulder as he naps. At least he’s warm against the side of my neck.

Rosa’s voice sounds from ahead, her phone light, along with Aiden’s, guiding us through the woods. “Does anyone else feel like we’re being followed?”

I glance behind me as a rustle of leaves sweeps the twig-strewn ground. A shiver skittles down my spine when I turn my head and spot a ghostly figure flicker in and out of the darkness, entrenched by shadows. “Yes. We must be close.”

She cocks a hip, then continues walking ahead. “Try saying that again without smiling.”

Lorcan’s voice penetrates my mind. Scared, Little Witch?

A little, I admit and keep walking.

Thought so. A growl reverberates in his chest, earning him a glance from Ezra. I can smell your arousal from here.

Jealous? I tease, and he yanks his fist into his hair.

The only thing you should fear in these woods is me.

I drag my tongue over my lips, my chest heaving. Perhaps you’ve lost your touch.

Wait until we’re in Hell. He bites out as he matches my pace. I’ll remind you how terrifying I can be.

My thighs clench as we walk, warmth pooling in the pit of my stomach. I hope he fucking does. Lorcan lets me play out my darker fantasies in a safe-ish way. While it’s unpredictable with him, it’s totally different from when I was being tortured at The Order.

His fingers flex at his side as if he’s contemplating the last time we were in the woods together, and I’m reminded what he used those hands for.

Rosa huffs, snapping me out of my thoughts, her voice tinkering as she whispers to Ezra, “They’re doing it again.”

“Why focus on them?” Ezra asks. “I am far more entertaining.”

I can hear Rosa’s eye roll from here and suppress a smirk.

“Is that it?” Aiden whispers, as if we might awaken the spirits haunting these narrow trees. “It’s a rusted old thing.”

Ezra strides to the brown-orange metal gate, half buried behind tall grass, the bars strangled with ivy. “Oh, this is it. Feels like home.”

Aiden grimaces. “So, if we go through that…”

“You won’t be dragged to Hell. Yet,” Gideon says before Lorcan or Ezra gets the chance to scare Aiden. “We need to go through all seven first.”

Aiden shudders. “Dragged?”

Ezra nods. “How else did you think we’d get there?”

“I don’t know,” he says, shining his phone’s flashlight around. “I thought there’d be a portal or something.”

“It makes sense,” I chime in. “A portal would be the most likely scenario for someone not well-versed in this. We used one to get to the Shadow Realm.”

Lorcan walks ahead of me, his focus on Aiden, twigs snapping under his heavy boots as he reaches him. “Yes, but this is Hell and there are few ways in. None of them are portals.”

“Mhmm,” Ezra says, his foot bouncing against the ground. “The ground opens up and swallows you whole. Or so I’ve heard.”

“Heard?” Rosa and I question in tandem.

Ezra lifts his arms in an elaborate shrug. “What? I’ve never been to Hell via a gateway before.”

Rosa lifts her brows in mock horror. “How do you normally get there?”

Lorcan walks through the gate first, then looks back at us, answering in place of Ezra. “We walk through dimensions, but that’s not an option this time, else we would land directly into Lucifer’s Court, and they’d know we were coming. We need the element of surprise. Besides…” His intense gaze finds me. “This is the only way mortals can get there. Well, this or dying.”

“Lucifer’s Court?” I repeat, imagining a weird underground hell castle upon a moat of lava.

Ezra nods and follows Lorcan through the gate. “Yeah. It’s a big castle filled with spirits and demons and balls. It takes up most of Hell.”

“Balls?” I grimace, unable to even imagine the balls that would be held in Hell.

“Oh yeah,” Ezra replies.

Lorcan’s statements shoots through our bond. They’re horrifying. You will love it, Little Witch.

The light dwindles from Aiden’s phone, and he bashes it against the side of his hand. “Batteries dead.”

Rosa’s phone flashlight fades, too, along with Gideon’s flashlight, plunging us into darkness only remedied by a silver of the moon. “Mine too.”

The atmosphere shifts. An icy chill shrouds us, the scent of sulfur permeating the usual smell of decayed leaves and damp earth. Within the tree line, a translucent woman flickers, ambling through thickets of leaves, as if she’s searching for something.

Beyond her, a second woman leans over a makeshift pentagram of twigs, muttering spells. None of them seem to notice us.

“Oh my fuck,” Rosa exclaims when she spots them.

“They’re just ghosts,” I say with a flick of my hand. “They’ll draw from our energy, but they’re not sentient like spirits.”

Aiden's eyes are twice as wide. “Sentient? Like they don’t have feelings?” His shoulders droop. “Great! Psychopath ghosts are even worse.”

Lorcan sighs. “That’s sentiment, you idiot. She means the ghosts are not aware. They’re just imprints of time left on this earth.”

“Oh.” Aiden falls silent and Gideon shoots Lorcan a glare filled with promise and threat.

Gomez stirs from his sleep as I walk through the first gateway, his claws digging into my shoulder. “It’s okay Gomey.”

His noses twitches as he curls his head around to get a better look at me, his round eyes somehow appearing bigger than normal. Once satisfied that everything is okay, he nuzzles back into my neck.

Once we’re all through the rusted, iron gate, Gideon takes the lead with Aiden in tow. If my research is correct, the second gateway should reveal itself to us soon.

“Fuck,” Ezra whispers, slowing his pace to match mine, and by default, Lorcan’s. “We’re going to have to go through the trials.”

Lorcan blows out a long exhale. “I forgot about those. But I’m sure we’ll get through them quickly.”

I flick my gaze to Lorcan, admiring how the blue-ish hue to his hair is even more prominent under the moonlight.

“ You will,” Rosa points out. “Because you, Ezra, and Gideon are princes of Hell. What about us mortals?”

Ezra takes the opportunity to lean closer. “Awe, Sugar, I’ll take care of you.”

She leans in the opposite direction. “As much as it pains me to admit it, I may need you too.”

Silence envelops us as we delve deeper into the woods, the spray of pale moonlight casting shadows from the branches onto the well-beaten dirt path.

We tread carefully over the mossy mattress below. I grab Lorcan’s biceps when my feet slide over a slick rock. Gomez’s claws dig into my shoulder as we weave our way through the labyrinth of twisted trunks, then past a circle of stones.

Heat sizzles in my fingertips, warming them against the icy gusts. My death magic hums the closer we venture, my skin prickling with electricity. “We’re close,” I exclaim.

Every log, twig and blade of grass is etched with the magic of my coven, of my family. It calls to me, the whistles of the wind echoing their chants.

The trees narrow, along with the path through them, and we venture off the beaten track.

“Agh!” Rosa jumps back a foot as a snake slithers across our path, its obsidian scales shimmering under the moonlight.

I watch the creature disappear into the underbrush. “It’s more scared of you, than you are of it,” I say as she hugs her arms around her, slowly backing away into the tree line where I’m certain more of them are.

She shakes her head. “I highly doubt that.”

Ezra pats her on the back. “It’s not venomous, sweetness.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” she asks.

Aiden rushes to Rosa’s side. “I’m with Rosa. I hate snakes. I can’t believe I’m saying this,” he adds, rubbing his palms up and down his arms, “but how long until we reach the final gateway?”

Lorcan’s dark chuckle sounds in my mind, his words searing through our bond. Does he think Hell is going to be any better?

Give him a break. I bite back. We’re all tired. He doesn’t need you adding to his misery.

Why not? Lorcan flashes me a white, wide grin in the darkness. The crueler I am to him, the less he’ll think about the real dangers surrounding him.

My brows flick up in surprise. So you’re doing him a kindness? You?

I catch the angle of his smirk before he turns his head to look ahead. Sure. I mean, I’d do it regardless. I do enjoy being the source of his terror.

How bad are these trials going to be? I ask as I watch Gideon place a good three feet between him and Ezra, who falls back to walk with Rosa and Aiden.

They’re intended to test new souls who are sent to the underworld. Except, we’re arriving in our mortal forms. Well, you are, he explains, then continues in a somber tone through our bond. Humans are usually dead when they arrive—with just their souls. The spirits are ferried across the river by Asher before entering the trials from the beginning. Evangeline’s gateways to hell will likely drop us in the middle of some trial, so it’s likely we won’t have to go through as many. I doubt she’d want to wade through hundreds just to make her way to the Human Realm.

A soft patter of rain drizzles onto my face and hair. I cover Gomez with my dark strands like a curtain, pulling my hood over my head, searching for pockets of warmth.

You think she visits the Human Realm?

I notice him shrug in my peripheral vision. Maybe. I doubt she can sneak away from my dad for long enough.

I pause, peering into the darkness as the abandoned mill comes into focus, its decrepit walls cloaked in the shadows of the trees, windows dark and hollow with vines choking the ancient stones forming what’s left of the building.

My magic vibrates the closer we get, and I spot another iron gate, this time less weathered and taller.

“Thank fuck,” Ezra says, sighing. “I’m ruining my shoes.”

Lorcan rolls his eyes. “We’re going to be dragged through the earth, fuckwit.”

Ezra leans closer to Aiden and Rosa and snickers. “He’s extra grumpy tonight.”

Ignore him, I command, unwilling to listen any more of their bickering. Partly because I have a headache, but also because their sibling rivalry and quips remind me of my relationship with Caden—of when I had a brother.

Gideon storms through the gate first, his sword glinting from the moonlight, still strapped to his back. His long, braided hair catches against dangling vines hanging from a low branch, that brush his shoulders like the fingers of the grim reaper.

Ezra goes next, followed by Aiden, then Rosa, who accidentally runs her fingers through a web stretching between two trees. She screeches, making Aiden and Ezra jump, her entire body rolling with a shudder.

“I’m done,” she exclaims breathlessly. “I need light.” Her eyes focus on Ezra as she places her hand on her hip. “Can’t you do something? You are a demon.”

Ezra snort-laughs. “I’m not a damned flashlight, Sugar. Just stay close. We’ll be there soon.”

My heart skips a beat when I reach the gate, creaking against a gust of air. The magnetic pull of the mill draws me closer, beckoning me to wander inside and join the lost souls of my ancestors.

My magic pulses as the violent energy of the Fallenmoore witches and their sacrifices bubbles around us. Except no one seems to notice except for me. Their ghostly desires knot with mine, and I’m suddenly nauseous and dizzy.

I whip my head around to look at the spirits watching me from the mill with charcoal eyes and smoky forms, like slow-moving tornadoes growing closer. They want me to go to them. They can sense my magic.

Lorcan’s voice is sharp and pointed when it arrows into our bond. Tell them to fuck off.

I flick my gaze to him, noticing how his black hair shadowing his eyes has curled against his forehead from the rain.

Dark lashes frame his intense, pastel-green eyes when he says aloud, “You’re alive. That means you are so much more powerful than them. That includes Evangeline or any of the demons or spirits in Hell.”

“Except for you,” I reply, focusing on him until the spirit's translucent, glowing figures fade from my peripheral view.

His boyish smile makes my heart leap. “I’m the exception. I was born a demon, not made into one.”

I blink twice, the moment holding us together with an invisible tether, until he locks his fingers with mine and pulls me toward the gate.

The second I’m through the gate, the nausea dissipates.

The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth gates are unremarkable, and the ghosts and spirits don’t bother us again, as the wrought iron entrances emerge in the darkness along the long, winding path through the dense woods.

But the seventh gate is unlike anything else.

I hold my breath when we see it, shimmering in dark purple and obsidian as it appears out of thin air between two twisted trees, the bark on the trunk resembling skeletal beings trapped in time.

The spires on the top arrow through the canopy above.

It’s far too quiet and still. There’s not a breath of wind or a hoot from an owl. It’s as if we’ve stumbled into hallowed ground, except it’s anything but that.

Aiden whistles out a breath. “I’m not going first.”

Rosa steps back. “Yeah, me neither.”

Lorcan and Gideon stomp toward the long, twisted bars, and I flex my fingers at my side.

“Gomey, hold on tight to me, okay?” My little fruit bat nestles closer, his body trembling against my neck. “You can stay here. Until I get back.”

He flaps his wings, his fangs grazing my skin in warning.

I whisper. “Okay, but Hell is dangerous.”

His claws grip into my skin in a way that tells me he’s not leaving my side, and my stomach dips, knowing I must protect him at all costs.

His wings tangle in my hair, knotting into a mess which is going to be impossible to brush out, but I don’t care, not now when we’re about to be dragged through the mud and into Hell.

My voice comes out a hair above a whisper. “Let’s get this over and done with.”

Rosa looks at me, her brown eyes glossy, and nods. We both know she’s seeing this through to the end too. Poor Aiden looks as if he’s going to pass out.

Lorcan and Ezra smile while Gideon looks completely unbothered, as if this is a regular Tuesday.

I grab Rosa and Aiden’s hands, and we walk through the gate together—slowly at first, then into a run before we lose our nerve.

Then everything changes.

I struggle to hold on to them as the ground quakes and splits with a roar. Vines and phantom fingers snakes from the clammy mud that gurgles as if it’s alive and intends to devour us, gripping my ankles.

Aiden’s scream tears from his throat, as he’s pulled waist deep, his fingers clawing at the ground.

Adrenaline floods my veins, and the more I struggle, the faster I sink.

A low rumble resonates through the Earth as smoke spirals from the gate in illusory waves, and I watch Lorcan and Ezra smiling as they’re dragged to Hell, their arms crossed upwards, palms flat against their chests.

“Stay calm,” I shout as we’re dragged deeper. “No matter what happens, we must stick together.”

The sticky, wet mud clings tighter, enveloping us from a soft embrace to something far more sinister. The vines and fingers tug harder until I can’t breathe. I’m holding onto Gomez with every ounce of strength I have, but he’s torn from me the moment he hits the soil.

The soil is in my nose now, my mouth gasping for one more lungful of air before I’m pulled underneath, mud muffling my call to Gomez.

Then I’m falling through a void, grasping at the black air for something tangible to hold on to. The landscape transforms around me into fog and smoke and darkness. My descent slows, and I’m spiraling through shadow creatures twisting in the corner of my eye, just out of sight. Demons lurk on the fringes of the darkness, their occasional red eyes flashing as the air is mercilessly pulled from my lungs.

“Fuck!” I scream as my body slams onto cool, stone slabs. Slowly, I look around, taking in the fog and what appears to be an eerie graveyard.

Every sound is an echo in the void.

“Rosa?” I croak. “Gomey? Lorcan?”

Lorcan?

Our bond is broken, at least temporarily, and I look around. I’m completely alone.