Page 42 of Soul Bound (Cursed Descent (MistHallow Academy) #2)

Janice? Fuck.

Before I can demand more answers, a violent tremor cuts me off. The chamber’s support beams groan ominously above us.

“The whole structure’s coming down,” Vex shouts, dodging a falling chunk of masonry. “MistHallow included.”

“We need to get out of here,” Draven grabs my arm, pulling me toward the left archway.

Always left.

The ceiling caves in behind us with a thunderous crash, forcing us into the narrow passage, along with Xanthos and Laurent. Luc takes the lead with a Hellfire orb, illuminating our path as we run. It flickers and sputters, fighting against the magick dampening.

The walls press close, slick with age-old dampness and something that looks disturbingly like blood leaking out of the cracks.

We sprint through intersecting passages, each tremor bringing down more debris. My magick pounds in my head. It’s warning me. But for what? It’s making it hard to focus, and we can’t stop for long enough for me to take a breath and figure it out.

“Left!” Xanthos calls out.

Always fucking left.

The floor disappears beneath his feet. Vex lunges, catching his arm as the stone crumbles away to reveal a bottomless void. The crimson glow from below reaches for us, hungry and alive.

“Did you have to?” I screech at Vex.

He shrugs as he hauls Xanthos up out of the maw. Personally, I would’ve let him plummet straight into the mouth of Hell. Clearly, that’s what that red glow is. Draven and Luc’s expressions tell me the same. They know, and it’s not good. The curse is containing it right now, but it’s there, and it’s ready.

“There!” Draven points to a rusted ladder built into the wall ahead. It leads up into darkness, but I can feel fresh air moving.

Another explosion rocks the tunnels. The ladder groans as we climb, rust flaking away under our hands.

My skin crawls as I sense pure evil. Waiting. Watching.

The curse may be holding for now, but we haven’t seen the last of what lies beneath. Not by a long shot.

We just have to survive long enough to face it again.

The ladder shudders violently as another explosion rocks the complex. My fingers slip on the rusted metal, my heart lurching as I nearly fall. Only Draven’s quick grab of my wrist from above keeps me steady.

A deafening crack echoes through the tunnel, and I look up to see the shaft splitting. Pale light filters down through a jagged opening about thirty feet above us.

Something wraps around my ankle. It’s cold, strong, and definitely not human. I kick out, but the grip only tightens.

“Tilly!” Luc roars from above me. His Hellfire illuminates the shaft, revealing dark tendrils of energy snaking up from the depths.

Vex slashes through one with a blade of pure magick. “They’re trying to pull us back down!”

The ladder gives another sickening lurch. Metal screams against stone as the whole structure starts to tear away from the wall. We’re running out of time.

The thing around my ankle yanks hard. I summon every ounce of power I can muster. The Praxian force responds, lashing out in a violent display that rips the shadow creature apart.

Draven hauls me up with his Demonic strength, and I hit the upper tunnel ground hard. “Thanks,” I mutter, pushing my hair out of my face. Even in the erratic glow of the Hellfire orb, I can see more strands of darkness in my rainbow streaks. Draven’s face is covered in black veins, and Luc has shifted to his Demonic form. Vex is next up the ladder, and his appearance shocks me. His blue eyes are glowing brightly like his runes. His features have changed. Darker, more angular, with black lightning sparking under his skin.

“Move!” Luc shouts, unleashing a blast of Hellfire that temporarily drives the shadows back as they follow us up the ladder. Laurent hauls herself off the ladder with Xanthos behind her.

His shriek of fear echoes around the chambers when more tendrils of dark energy snake up through the gaps in the grating, searching, reaching, finding a target and wrapping around his body, covering him.

“No!” I bellow, yanking Vex back. “Leave him!”

“We still need him,” Vex grits out.

We glare at each other for a few seconds, and then, reluctantly, I let him go, knowing he’s right. This is far from over, and there is still so much we don’t know.

But it’s too late.

The shadows yank Xanthos back down the ladder, his screams of pain growing more distant as he is devoured by whatever the fuck that thing was.

I swallow hard and avoid the guys’ stares. We all know my hesitation is what caused that. Vex could probably have saved him, if I hadn’t stopped him.

“We don’t need him,” I mutter and turn to where I can smell fresh air.

Laurent is gaping at where Xanthos was taken, but recovers quickly. “Anyone got any real magick?”

“Me,” I say, putting my hand up. “Enough anyway.”

She nods. “Can you move us to the surface?”

I blink, and everyone grips my arms. I try to do what she asked, but we go nowhere. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“You’ve never done that before,” Draven says. “Amplify my power.”

I nod, and we connect on the most primal level, our magicks touching as his hand grips mine. We’ve done this before. I know how this works.

“Well?” Vex asks after a silent moment.

“Can’t do it. The Praxian is being stubborn. It doesn’t want to leave.”

“Do you blame it?” I ask. “Everything it wants is right down there.” I point back the way we came.

“You cannot let it have it,” Laurent snaps.

A section of the tunnel we are standing in tears away behind Laurent, disappearing into the depths.

“We need to get out of here or be buried alive,” Luc says urgently.

“There!” Vex points to a door set into the rock wall.

He pushes past us to lead the way and blasts whatever magick he has at the stone door. It bursts open, and we tumble through into yet another narrow tunnel. The air is thick with dust and the metallic taste of old magick.

“Keep moving,” Laurent urges, her corrupted wings scraping the tunnel walls. “We’re not safe yet.”

The tunnel slopes upward, promising escape, but each step feels harder than the last. Like something is trying to pull us back.

The air grows fresher, and a cool breeze ruffles my hair across my sweat-covered face. In the next second, we lurch forward, and suddenly, we are in the forest, deep in the forest where the trees overhead form a tight canopy.

We stumble onto damp leaves, gasping in the clean air. But something’s wrong. The forest is too quiet. Nothing but the whisper of wind through leaves that curl away from us.

“This isn’t right,” Laurent says. “We should be closer to MistHallow’s outer grounds.”

“So where are we?” I ask in dread.

A distant explosion makes the ground tremble beneath our feet.

“The tunnels must have redirected us,” Draven says, his black veins pulsing as he scans the treeline. “We need to figure out where the fuck we are, and fast.”

“Down!” Luc tackles me as something dark and fast whistles through the space where my head had been. It hits a tree instead, and the bark instantly blackens and crumbles.

More shadows dart between the trees, moving with purpose. These aren’t like the formless things that took Xanthos. These are older, more defined. Hunters.

“Circle up!” Vex shouts, his blue runes blazing as he draws on whatever magick he has right now. “They’re herding us!”

He’s right. The shadows are moving in a pattern, forcing us backwards, driving us deeper into the forest where the trees grow closer together, where the darkness is thicker.

“Oh, fuck,” I breathe, “We’re being driven straight towards?—”

The ground erupts beneath our feet, sending us sprawling. Through the shower of dirt and roots, I see a figure approaching, struggling with something.

“Janice?” I croak, struggling to my feet as my sister comes into view.

My breath hitches when I see she is dragging Ellie alongside her, kicking out and screaming, but no sound comes out.

“Matilda,” Janice says. “That power looks good on you.”

“You bitch!” I roar, lunging for her, but Luc wraps his arms around me. “How could you? How could you do this to me?” Tears sting my eyes as I struggle against Luc, my power sparking on my fingertips. “You were supposed to protect me!”

Janice’s lips curl into a cruel smile that alters her face completely. She tightens her grip on Ellie. “Protect you? Oh, Tilly, you na?ve little thing. I was never meant to protect you. I was meant to prepare you.”

“For what?” I snarl, still struggling against Luc’s iron grip.

“For this moment,” Janice says, her eyes glowing with an unnatural light. “For your true purpose.”

The shadows swirl around us, pressing closer. I can feel their hunger, their anticipation. “Fuck you!” I screech as Chaos comes flying out of the treetops and lands, hissing and snarling at Janice.

“The one to open the gateway and usher in a new age.”

“An age of what?” Vex demands, his runes pulsing erratically. “Hell on Earth?”

Janice laughs, the sound echoing unnaturally through the forest. “Hell? Please. What’s coming is so much worse.”

“There is nothing worse than Hell, you deluded little cunt,” Luc snarls, setting me down and giving me a glare that screams, ‘stay.’

“Wanna bet?” she asks, a sinister smile curving her lips.

“Bring it,” Draven says casually. “You don’t realise who you are dealing with here.”

“Two Hell Princes. You should know what’s coming.”

“Look, bitch, nothing is as scary as our mother, you know, the Devil , so how about you shut the fuck up and let’s do this?” Luc says, actually pushing up his sleeves and clenching his fists.

“Fuck this,” I grit out. “Chaos? Eat her fucking face off.”

Chaos chitters with glee and launches his furry little body at my sisters in a blur of motion.

Janice screams and puts her hands up, letting go of Ellie, who crashes to the ground.

Chaos latches onto Janice’s face with a vicious snarl, clawing and biting as she screams and flails.

“Enough!” Janice’s voice booms unnaturally loud. She rips Chaos off her face and hurls him away. I cry out, but Vex catches him with lightning reflexes before he can hit a tree.

Janice’s face is half eaten, and I fight the urge to retch at the macabre sight.

“You think your little pet can stop what’s coming?” she snarls. “You have no idea of the forces at work here.”

“Then enlighten us,” Draven says coldly, death magick swirling around his hands. “Because I, for one, am getting sick to shit with this fuckery.”

Makes two of us. I glare at Ellie, who hasn’t moved an inch since Chaos attacked Janice.

Ice creeps into my veins as I watch her. Her eyes are fixed on me, those baby blue eyes that could melt the hardest of hearts but be filled with such cruelty in the next second. “Who are you?” I spit out, taking a step closer to her.

“Back,” she says and the shadow creatures who had been hanging in suspense, even when Janice was attacked, retreat.

“Uhm, Tilly,” Vex murmurs.

“Yeah,” I say. “I know.”

Read on with Curse Broken, Book 3 Curse Broken