Alma Katsu - The Descent

The queen then turned to me. Her icy stare sent a shiver down my back. She circled me slowly, looking me over. As she passed close by, I could make out her figure quite easily under the thin veil of her red robe. She may have been slender but she was muscular as well, and crackled with frightening energy—an energy similar to Adair’s, I couldn’t help but notice.

She plucked one of my curls, held it up as though she was examining it, and then let it fall. “So you’re the one he favors. For the life of me, I don’t see why—there’s nothing special about you.”

My blood began to race. I didn’t mind her insult, for it was true—there was nothing special about me. Even though she hadn’t said who “he” was, I knew of course: she was talking about Adair. It was then I noticed that, for all her coolness, she was seething. She was hurt.

The queen placed one bare white foot in front of the other as she circled me a second time. “Yes, you’re really rather plain, nothing extraordinary about you in the least. You’re like a little brown wren.”

I decided to put on a brave front. “It was you behind the dreams, wasn’t it? You tricked me into coming to the underworld.”

She laughed, bringing a hand to her sternum. “You accuse me of tricking you into coming here? It was no trick—you came for Jonathan, didn’t you? And he’s here.”

“So, let me speak to him,” I implored.

“In due time,” she said with an airily dismissive wave. She resumed pacing around me, studying me. She even ran a hand across my shoulders, along my back, like a child taunting me. Her touch was strong and electric and made me imagine, involuntarily, what it must be like for Jonathan when they were together, what it was like to couple with her, to be inside her.

I broke away from those thoughts. “It’s Adair—he’s the reason you’ve brought me here. I know that’s it, but I don’t understand. . . . Why do you need me? If you want him, why don’t you bring him here yourself?” I asked impudently. Desperation and exhaustion made me bold. After all, what more could she do to me? I assumed she needed me alive or else she would’ve killed me already.

She frowned, and I could swear the room dropped ten degrees instantaneously, a chill descending over it. “Indeed, the man you call Adair is the reason I’ve brought you here. Don’t worry, it will all be made clear to you eventually. A little patience, my brown wren. That’s all that’s required of you, a little patience.” She snapped her fingers at the remaining guard. “Take her away.”

My head whirling, I was brought by the demon guard to a small room. Unlike the replica of Adair’s fortress with the doors that had transported me back in time, there was nothing dreamlike or evanescent about this castle. It felt oppressively real. The room was a room and not a portal. The plaster walls were solid, withstanding the beating of my fists. The heavy wooden door looked as though it could repel a battalion. The tiny room was as neglected and run-down as the other parts of the castle that I’d seen, with the same filth accumulated in the corners and a dull, greasy film over the windows. The only piece of furniture in this room was a small wooden bench. A few old blankets had been thrown in a corner, ostensibly meant to function as a bed.

I sat on the bench and looked down at my legs. They were still smarting after the fall, and it was then that I noticed I was nicked up and bleeding. Normally, I wouldn’t think twice about a cut or scrape, because within minutes I would heal as good as new. But this time, it didn’t matter how long I stared: the wounds remained, the scratches looking unreal and vibrantly red against my white skin. It seemed that a different logic applied here in the underworld—for some reason, I was no longer immortal. Adair’s curse had been stripped away from me.

I was hit by a sudden wave of longing for the world I had left behind. Even if my circumstances were a bit twisted, that world was familiar and normal; I knew what to expect. Here, I’d been drawn into a fairy tale, and not one of the sweet ones, either; this was one of those violent stories told to frighten children and make them behave. I was the prisoner of an evil queen who had an army of fiery demons at her command. I had been locked away in an unassailable castle surrounded by a dark, impenetrable wood that was home to evil, ravening spirits. The world I knew was a million miles away, impossible to return to—especially now that I had lost the vial Adair had implored me to hold on to as our only means of communicating in the underworld.

What I really wanted, I realized, pacing around the room with tears sprouting from my eyes as I grasped the seriousness of my situation, was Adair. I was in way over my head and he was the only person even remotely capable of dealing with this realm. By magic or sheer force of will, he could do something about this; he could make it go away. I knew in this moment that I trusted him implicitly and despaired that I couldn’t tell him, that I might never get the chance to tell him.

Oh, it was weak of me to think like this, to want to be rescued, and I hated to give in to such weakness. I also knew this feeling was only temporary. I allowed myself to indulge in this momentary despair because I’d come so close—I’d made it to the underworld, I’d made my way to Jonathan—before it was snatched away from me. I was exhausted.

I was sitting on the threadbare blankets in my cell, ready to cry myself to sleep, when there was a soft knock at the door. It opened abruptly and Jonathan strode over to me quickly, cradling my face in both his hands as he kissed me on the top of my head. I must’ve looked cold because he slipped off the robe he was wearing and gave it to me. “Lanny, Lanny—what in the world are you doing here?”

“Believe it or not, I came for you,” I said weakly, knowing how ridiculous it sounded.

He chuckled darkly. “I was afraid of that.” He led me over to the plank bench and we sat, him cradling me on his lap. My cheek pressed to Jonathan’s chest, I explained why I’d come after him. I told him how I’d dreamed that he was in trouble and needed me. As much as it sickened me, I told him about the dungeon, too, and how it had mimicked the basement of Adair’s own fortress and how the nightmares had seemed to hound me. I told him how I’d begged Adair to send me into the underworld.

He twined our fingers like we were children. “That was brave of you, Lanny, but very foolhardy. I hope you see that. I may not be happy here, but I’m not being tortured—though even if I were, you shouldn’t have risked your safety to come after me. There are limits to what anyone can do for another person.”

I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to believe that. There were some people in my life for whom I would go to any lengths, and Jonathan was one of those people.

“Are you listening to me, Lanny?” he said, nudging my chin. “You needn’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. And I have as good a deal as anyone could hope for in the afterlife.”

“Really? This queen seems to have made you her sex slave.”

His cheeks reddened and he ducked his head. “I prefer the term ‘consort.’ She was taken with me and insisted I remain. The day will come when she tires of me, I’m sure, and then she’ll let me go. She seems to tire of things easily.”

I lifted my brows. “But you don’t want to be here, Jonathan. Do you?”

“She’s the ruler of the underworld—it’s not as though I have a choice,” he replied. “What’s the alternative? Do you know what happens to your soul after you die, Lanny? You come here to the underworld, knock around for a few days—apparently to loosen the bond to your past life—and then you are dispatched, jettisoned, into the void. Returned to the great, wide cosmos from which we came, broken down into elemental particles and energy. Recycled for parts.” I thought of Luke’s last moments—when he realized what was happening to him, that the finale had finally come, and how the endless void of space had opened up to receive him—and shivered.

“That’s what Adair was trying to spare us by making us immortal,” I said softly. “And look what I’ve reduced you to by taking your life—I’ve made you a gigolo.”

Jonathan tutted and butted his forehead against mine playfully. “Have some respect. At least I’m gigolo to the gods.”

Gods. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around that. I leaned in conspiratorially. “What do you know about them—the gods? Have you seen any others, besides the queen?”

He shook his head. “No. I’ve heard her refer to them. But no, I don’t know where the others reside except ‘elsewhere.’ I get the feeling that once you’re in the underworld, you stay here. There’s no coming and going.”

“So no one has escaped from the underworld? That can’t be strictly true. After all, you did, once. When Adair brought you back to life.”

“Right. You can’t imagine the excitement that caused. Here, it only seemed like I was gone for an instant, because time is so much slower here. And I think they already had their antennae up because of the tattoo. But apparently I wasn’t the only one to ever disappear from the underworld: I’d heard that one other soul did it a long, long time ago. They still don’t know how he did it, but they caught his accomplice and put him away under lock and key,” he said.

“I wonder who it was who escaped,” I mused. But I knew; I felt it in the pit of my stomach. Jonathan, too; he gave me a strained look.

He wrapped both his hands around one of mine. “There’s more I have to confess to you, Lanny . . . I’m afraid that your being here is all my fault. You see, I’m the one who told the queen about Adair. It’s because of the tattoo. When she saw the tattoo, she wanted to know how I’d gotten it and I told her about Adair, and you. . . . She must’ve sent you the dreams in order to trick you into coming to the underworld, Lanny. She’s been using you. I’m so sorry.”