Page 142 of Broken Souls

“Mmm. So do Craved sups find their way to the portal often?” I ask as Khalid nears a bend in the narrow hall.

“Once a decade or so,” Varius says. “But we don’t want to be caught off guard.”

The hallway turns, then widens into a corridor. Now five people can walk side by side. It stays like that for a long stretch before rounding another corner and expanding once more. It does this a few more times until twenty people can fit side by side. They’re choke points, I realize, places where the defending party can hold off a much bigger army.

“So if there’s only one wolf coming through every ten years, what’s with the design?” I ask.

“It was made during the Great Extinction, and no one’s ever decided to change it.”

I whistle as I feel the weight of history all around me. The Great Extinction happened around two thousand years ago if memory serves, when a vampire called Sebastian the Ancient Destroyer teamed up with a descendant (a child of the gods, who are not gods, just like gods are not the titans they hail from) known as Rakian the Rise of Ragnarok.

In their war across the Seven Planes, they completely destroyed one world, Persic, causing it to continuously fold in on itself like a paper fortune teller. Earth was cut off from the rest of the Seven Planes in an attempt to save it, and Christianity was born to make them forget the old gods and the world they were no longer to be a part of. Gaera, once a plane of picturesque paradise, created by the elementals, fell into decay. Its rivers started drying up. Its forests and plains started dying. I assumed the planet would’ve been close to uninhabitable by now, but considering my wand came from there, I guess it’s still stable enough to hold life.

“That’s really cool,” I say.

The corridor soon opens up into a cavern, its manmade material giving way to natural stone.Rugged brown walls arch into a ceiling of stalactites that hang a few feet down. At the back is a wall made of swirling pink and orange mist.Dozens of men in store uniform laze around the place. They are all here for security if shit hits the fan, but for now, they are just bored out of their minds.

“I thought portals glowed?” I murmur as we approach.

“Only when they’re about to be used,” Leno says.

“Ah.” I swallow the rest of my questions as a muscular man with a shaved head and face tattoos comes up to us. A dragon curls around his left eye, and the nameDaymara is written in cursive on his cheek.

“Boss,” he says as he looks at Varius. “What can I do –”

“Get everyone out.”

He hesitates a second, then turns and yells for everyone to get upstairs. There’s a moment of confusion given the gate is just starting to glow.

“Out, now! Boss’ orders,” the man repeats.

The atmosphere changes instantly as they realize that it’s Varius fucking Shadow who’s just entered. Everyone jumps to obey, and the cavern starts to clear.

“We’ll be up until you come up,” the soldier says as he turns to leave with his men. “Or if any of the protection runes are activated.”

I glance at the runes he’s mentioned. Fifteen blue circles cover the floor in front of the portal. On closer inspection, I realize they’re not fully complete, with a gap of a few inches left on each one. They’re similar to a summoning circle for eknor demons, but the runes around these will be to stop outside forces from breaking in rather than the other way around.

The five of us split, so Khalid, Varius, and I step inside one of the circles, and Leno, Krypto, and Maddox wait in another. They won’t activate until a witch casts a spell to delete that gap.

Lifting my eyes to the portal, I watch as it grows ever brighter until it matches the intensity of the setting sun. The surface of it ripples like water, and the first silhouette starts to push through.

It’s humanoid and nowhere near as tall as a werewolf in wolf form, but it could still be a vampire under the Craving. Werewolves might have unmatched speed, but vampires can phase. They could reach us in the blink of an eye.

Fuck. I wish I still had my magic.

My teeth clench as my anger at Varius comes bubbling back.

“When did you claim her?” Khalid demands as another silhouette joins the first.

The question is so out of the blue that it puts me on edge. But then Varius’ paranoia slams into me, and I have to curl my toes to fight the urge to run. My hand brushes against a knife as I shift subtly towards my husband.

“This isn’t the time,” he says.

“I killed our little brother and came back to a wedding,” the reaper says softly. “You will give me the fucking time.”

My pulse spikes as two predators face off.

The urge to stab Khalid before he can react makes my fingers twitch. His gaze shifts to me, and I freeze.