Page 9 of Hellfire to Come (Infernal Regions for the Unprepared #5)

Chapter Nine

brOOKLYN

This cursed place was getting to me.

The deeper we pushed, the more it felt like the walls were closing in on me.

Hissed voices reached my ears like the stones themselves were holding secrets; Not the kind you whisper.

The kind you bury. The corridors were crooked, warped from time and cruelty, and the stench of old blood clung to every inch of it.

I’d passed the same path once or twice but I’d never been this aware of everything.

Never paid it this close attention. I wished I didn’t at that moment either.

Wished I could ignore the cracks splitting the floor like veins, and the strange sigils that had been scorched into the walls.

Every so often, we passed alcoves with charred bones still chained to the stone, forgotten offerings in a house of horrors.

I didn’t need a reminder that this place was soaked in death. My skin knew it.

My own blood was soaked in the very core of the cursed structure.

So was my rage. And I clung to that with everything in me.

Dominic and I moved in silence, his hand occasionally brushing at the small of my back like he was reassuring himself I was still with him instead of buried in memories.

Usually that would’ve made me upset, but I appreciated it this time—more than he knew.

The wolf was slinking through the corridors nose brushing the ground, searching for Alice as hard as we were.

Echo and Chester were just behind us, close enough that I could feel their magic humming through the stale air even when I couldn’t see them.

We’d just finished dragging the bodies of the last witches we encountered, and my body ached from the strain, but I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.

Alice must be close.

Closer than she’d been since the Council took her anyway.

Just as I thought that, a sharp agony doubled me over, nearly dropping me on my knees. It took me a second to realize that it was not me that felt pain but Alice.

Something was wrong.

Again.

I paused at a junction, hand pressed to the grimy stone to hold myself upright, breath shallow, sweat slicking my temple despite the cold. The air here had teeth, biting at my skin, every nerve bristling with warning.

Two halls diverged before me, dark and gaping, the space heavy with the threat of something ancient stirring just beneath the surface.

One curved upward toward a splintered staircase barely clinging to the wall, its steps broken and warped by time and disuse. Faint whispers of light filtered through the cracks above, chasing shadows like they were afraid to linger.

The other sloped down. Into blackness. Not the passive kind, but a darkness that felt alive. Sentient. Hungry. It reached for me without moving, promising the kind of pain you don’t come back from the same.

I didn’t flinch.

I didn’t need to.

Because the pull in my chest, that invisible thread tied to Alice, snapped taut, strained to the edge of breaking, the weight of it crushing every breath.

There was zero doubt in my mind.

She was down there.

And she was running out of time.

My heart tripped.

“She’s below us,” I whispered through numb lips, well aware of what was down there.

Dominic stepped beside me. “You sure?”

“Yes.”

Not a question. Not a hunch. A certainty that rang through my bones. The bond pulsed again, almost violently this time. Alice wasn’t just below, I could tell that she was moving. Alive. Desperate.

“She must’ve escaped wherever they held her,” I said, dread spreading through my limbs just thinking what she could find there. “She’s trying to meet us, the crazy female.”

“That explains the tremors,” Chester muttered from right behind me. “Your girl has quite the chaotic signature when she starts flinging magic like she was born with it.”

“She does, doesn’t she,” I snorted, ignoring the comment about her acting like she was born with it. He was more observant than I gave him credit for and I’d hate if I had to kill him now. One, the demon started growing on me. Two, Alice was a priority.

“We should double back,” I said, straightening and forcing the tremor from my voice. “There’s a split by the antechamber. If we take the lower hall there, it loops around the core foundations. We’ll find the entrance to the cages level.”

“Brilliant,” Chester muttered. “Just what I wanted, spending time around cages.”

I turned a sharp look on him, but he only shrugged, unapologetic. His meaning rang clear— I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking. They’re the ones too scared to say it.

“What else will we find?” Echo asked, her voice low, blade already in hand. She ignored her companion so naturally I had to bet that Chester had a habit of being a smart mouth when the stakes got high. I had no time to make a comment about any of it.

Never got a chance.

As if summoned by her question, the wall beside us let out a deep, splintering groan.

The stones shuddered beneath our feet, dust sprinkling in fine streams from the ceiling.

We all took steps back, plastering closer to the walls in case the roof caved in on us.

A cold draft curled through the corridor, creeping along the back of my neck, too slow, too deliberate to be just air passing through.

It carried the scent of damp earth, rot, and something older. Something feral.

The scent of ozone burned my nostrils.

A sound followed.

Low.

Rhythmic.

Wrong.

It was chanting.

At first, it was just a whisper beneath the groaning stone, like wind curling through freshly sprouted leaves. But then it grew. It layered. Many voices humming in perfect, hypnotic unison. No melody. Just purpose. As if the building itself was being called to attention.

I felt the magic behind it before I saw anything. A slow tightening in the air, like pressure building beneath my skin. It scraped across my bones, foreign and invasive.

Dominic stiffened beside me, his nostrils flaring, his animal instincts rising fast. He grabbed me around the waist and tucked me behind him in a too smooth of a motion.

“They’re calling something,” he said, voice roughening.

“Or someone,” Echo added, already backing into position next to him. The red sigils etched on her blade began to glow.

I unsheathed my dagger sliding sideways so I could flank my mate on the other side. I’d be dead before I’d hide behind him when there was danger. He rumbled unhappily but said nothing.

Smart male.

The stone beneath our boots throbbed faintly now, as though the structure was some enchanted beast that was awakening, its heartbeat restarting sluggishly at first but getting stronger with each thump.

“They’re trying to make sure we don’t reach Alice,” I said with the certainty etched into my bones. The magic felt wrong, but I understood it deep down, my blood was answering its call without my permission. “Or, if we reach her to not be able to leave. It’s a magical trap.”

“Get ready.” Dominic growled. He was already shifting, bones cracking and reshaping into something leaner, sharper. The panther dropped beside me with a thud, his tail lashing, eyes glowing faintly in the dim light.

“Back to back,” I pulled on Echo’s arm to get her moving closer. “We keep each other’s backs. Don’t let them isolate you. I’ll do my best to hold a shield against their magic for as long as I can. You three kill anything that moves within reach.”

They came from the shadows.

Five this time, maybe more behind them. Robes like smoke.

Eyes gleaming with silver flame, sigils pulsing eerily on their skin.

They didn’t hesitate. One threw a bolt of pure force at us.

I raised my hand instead of forming a shield, catching it mid-air and absorbing the energy into my palm with a snarl.

For a split second I felt the shock on the faces of those around me but I had no time to think what that meant.

Taking a page from Alice’s book, I decided to own it, as she would say.

“Wrong move,” I hissed at the equally shocked witches, and hurled the cursed magic back.

It struck one in the chest and slammed her into the far wall with enough force to crack the stone, impaling her like a bug.

Dominic launched forward, claws flashing in the gloom, and tore through the wards shielding another.

Chester and Echo moved as one, coordinated in ways I never thought they could be, slicing and searing with brutal elegance.

It was a deadly dance that flowed as if we’d practiced it for years.

A witch tried to flank me, her blade drawn with poison dripping from its edge.

I ducked under it and drove a pulse of energy into her chest. She screamed as her body crumpled into the far pillar.

Another tried to bind me in glowing sigils, but Echo’s blade severed the witch’s arm before the spell finished.

Chester hurled his dagger across the room.

It sang through the air before burying itself in the last witch’s throat.

I fought with the strange power rising in me, as if it had always belonged there.

The magic came easier now. Wilder. I didn’t question it.

A scream pierced the air. Not one of ours. The final witch collapsed, her mouth open in a silent curse.

We didn’t stop to check if there were more waiting around the corner.

We ran.

Down, around, through the suffocating dark.

The walls were narrowing now, the ceilings were getting lower.

Archaic carvings lined the stones, pulsing with low, green light.

The air grew thicker, hotter, reeking of rot and old blood.

Before I was ready to accept that I was back where everything started, my boot scraped over flat dusty packed ground.

We reached the lower hall.

That’s when the Guardians came.

I barely had time to shout a warning before they were on us.

Guardians.

More grotesque than before, skin stretched taut over bulging muscle, their armor fused to flesh like it had grown there.

Leather harnesses held jagged swords and hook-blades, their faces hollowed out into masks of decay.

And those eyes…dead, sunken things, pierced sharper than any weapon.

They saw nothing, felt nothing. Just vessels of pain and purpose.

Dominic met them head-on, all fang and fury, a black blur of muscle and teeth. I followed, slicing through one with a blast of pure kinetic force still humming at my fingertips. It shattered the Guardian’s weapon, sending bone and steel flying as his body slammed into another.

Chester was laughing, actually chortling, as he hurled a Guardian up the staircase like a ragdoll. Echo was right behind him, a goddess of flame, igniting another with a flick of her wrist. Their demon magic danced between them in spiraling arcs of fire and shadow, scorching symbols into the walls.

The wolf, blood-soaked and feral, darted between the bodies, jaws clamped around a thigh. He ripped. Twisted. Shook it like a toy. Viscera rained across the stone.

Screams rang out, echoing off the ancient stone. Sparks skittered across the floor. Steel rang like a choir of bells as it kissed stone and bone. I ducked a swing, rolled beneath a Guardian’s reach, and came up in a slash that tore open a ribcage. Hot blood sprayed across my neck.

Dominic launched off the wall and crashed into two of them mid-air, dragging them down in a whirl of snapping teeth and howls. Chester barked a command, the runes around him erupting into light as the ceiling groaned and part of the tunnel collapsed, crushing a wave of reinforcements.

I prayed Alice wasn’t behind that wall of stone.

But I couldn’t blame Chester.

I’d have done the same.

Echo and I moved like we shared a single spine. Her fire drove them back; I carved the opening. She scorched limbs; I severed spines. A macabre duet of survival.

We thinned their numbers, step by bloodstained step.

The bond in my chest screamed now, a tether yanking me forward with the urgency of a pulse about to flatline. She was near. Right there.

“Alice, stay back!” I roared, unsure whether I wanted to warn her, or just hear my voice. Hear something other than the madness.

Another Guardian lunged, his jaw unhinged wide like a predator unmasked. I didn’t hesitate. I drove my blade through his throat, twisting until vertebrae cracked like glass. His body fell like a puppet with its strings cut.

Then…

There.

At the far end of the corridor, past shattered pillars and half-burnt tapestries, stood Alice.

Her hair was a wild, tangled mess around her face in sweaty ringlets. Her skin was smeared in blood, some hers, some not. The rusted pipe in her hands was lifted like a sword, trembling slightly in her white-knuckled grip. Her mouth split into a grin so broad it nearly cracked her bruised cheeks.

“We killed the fuckers!” she shrieked, voice sharp with unspent adrenaline. The pipe wobbled above her like a flag of chaotic triumph.

She had no glasses. Of all things, my brain snagged on that like the absurdity of noticing an earring missing during a shipwreck.

But gods, she was alive.

I didn’t wait. I ran to her, weaving between the wounded, dodging the fallen, blood splashing beneath my boots.

Nothing else mattered.

Except nothing in this damn life was ever that simple.

Just as I reached the final stretch between us, three more Guardians emerged from a hidden alcove to block my path. Bigger. Meaner. And they weren’t alone.

From the shadows behind Alice came a voice. Cold. Familiar.

“I was wondering how long it would take you to find her,” purred Frederic.

Of course.

Of course, he was here.

Unfortunately for him, I was done running.